Interview
by The Die Hard
Summary: Clark and company are offered college scholarships ... from a most unusual recruiting agency. (Epilogue added - Satan meets his match.)
1. Default Chapter

Interview  
  
Disclaimer: Somebody else owns all the Smallville stuff. Special Operations, and Lake, Nicole, Wynter, Randal, and Baron John, on the other hand, are my own creations, who have been hanging around my head and sticking their noses into other people's businesses for a few years now, so don't nobody go perving them . They're perverted enough already.  
  
Spoiler: post-Rosetta  
  
The rented microvan tooled along at speed with its sunroof and rear panel windows open, causing the driver, a small pale unremarkable-looking woman, to gripe occasionally about the January Kansas chill. Her passenger, mahogany-skinned with obsidian eyes and hair to match, whose long legs necessitated no smaller a vehicle, ignored both the temperature and her companion in favor of the book she was concentrating on. Nicole was not a fast reader, so in order to keep up with her fellow Special Operations agents, she had to spend a lot of time at her studies. However, since her body needed no rest at all, and Special Ops' resident genius had taught her the self-hypnosis trick of compressing six hours of requisite dream time into twenty minutes or so, she had a lot of spare time for reading.  
  
Lake Anderson, the unremarkable-looking head of the Specials' field agents, finally got fed up enough with having cold ears to shut the sunroof. "Hey," Nicole protested mildly, not looking up from her book. "Screw you," Lake returned in the same abstracted tone. "What difference does it make to you anyway?"  
  
"I like the background noise. Makes the right mood for reading this stuff." Nicole waved the book without taking her eyes off the page. Keeping her eyes focused was never going to be one of her problems.  
  
Lake glanced over at the book. Nicole was barely halfway through. "Sheesh, are you still reading up on the astrophysics? It's not like a whole lot of it is germane to the target." She'd only skimmed it herself, but then, she'd been trained at speed-reading and mnemonics techniques, among other things, since she'd been discovered and "recruited" off the streets at about age three.  
  
"Doc Swann went to the trouble of writing it, I can go to the trouble of at least trying to read it." Nicole settled back, grumbling. "And it's not like you couldn't put on a hat or something. After Chicago, you got enough winter clothes to go camping at the north pole." In fact, the Chicago operation had been brutal in more ways than just the weather.  
  
"I hate hat hair." And she hated being weighted down with clothing. It interfered with her range of motion and ability to run or fight. It interfered with her not-quite-definable extra senses. "Please tell me you at least finished the report on the kid."  
  
"I ain't a genius, blondie, but I ain't as dumb as a squawk-show fan to think I could go in cold on this one. Besides, if even half of what Virgil and Wynter and Randal gave to John is true, then we'll be able to pick him out of a crowd at a glance. At least, I will."  
  
Lake glanced over at her again, amused. "What are you planning to do, give him a full-monty handshake? If you're wrong, we'll be the ones paying hospital bills for a year."  
  
Nicole shrugged. "If I'm wrong, then so is Doc Swann, and Wynter, and Randal, and even John. Figure the odds." She put down the book with a sigh. "Hey, there it is."  
  
At 180 kph on the flat road -- Lake had a usually-unsuspected lead foot -- it was less than a minute before Lake made out the sign that Nicole had already seen. "Welcome to Smallville, Meteor Capitol of the World." Nicole snorted. "I think Arizona Crater might have a beef with them on that one. From the satellite photos, these guys don't even have a hole in the ground. Wonder if they charge admission to the strike sites?"  
  
"From the records," Lake reminded her mildly, "the meteorites broke up high at first entry, suggesting that they were mostly rock, not nickel-iron. The strikes would have been scattered and shallow, not the kind of concentrated shockwave one big single hit causes. I doubt there's anything left of any strike sites by now, though it must have been pretty devastating to any structures in its path at the time."  
  
"Yeah, imagine if it, they, had come down over a big city." Remembering Chicago, and New York back in '01, even Nicole shuddered.  
  
"And those scientific illiterates with their pork barrels don't 'believe' that the near-Earth-object program is a 'priority'," Lake finished, bitterly. "Sometimes I wish...." She shook her head. "Never mind." All business again, all disguise: "Wynter wanted a few samples of the meteorites. Maybe somebody sells them. Save us the trouble of rock hunting."  
  
Nicole kept her expression still. It was an article of faith among the Special Operators that their field leader, the harmless-looking Lake Anderson, was a vicious psychopath, and deadly dangerous even without her special talents. Sometimes, despite her life-long training, she slipped up and let it show. If John hadn't found her while she was still young enough to be controlled.... "Speak of the devil, and a reasonable facsimile appears before us," Nicole said cheerfully, to distract both of them. A roadside stand zipped by as Lake reluctantly let up on the accelerator, spun the microvan as if it were a Fiat, and headed back to the sign proclaiming "GET YOUR METEOR ROCKS HERE!"   
  
Not for the first time, Nicole decided that it was a darn good thing that she and Lake were the most common partner team in the field, because nobody except her could have survived Lake's enhanced-reflexes driving.  
  
Picking through the mounds of greenish rocks and plain stones heaped among the rest of the tacky plastic tourist souvenirs, Nicole snorted. Not at the tacky -- they had both been on assignment in Florida several times; they had seen tacky tourist souvenirs on a level of tacky that was orders of magnitude beyond anything midwesterners would ever be able to imagine -- but at the fact that most of the "rocks" were, in fact, obviously plastic and glass, even to Lake's eyes. Nicole, whose visual range extended a couple of million shades beyond red and violet in both directions, paused to comment loudly on the fact that she had thought they didn't make glass Coke bottles any more. Lake, trying not to make enemies on their first day in town, soothed the clerk's ruffled feathers by buying a souvenir cornfield snow globe and several bottles of the disgusting soft drink that only Nicole would have been able to digest. Nicole, waiting on the purchases, wandered around some more, when something glittering a sharp green that glowed outside of the normal visual spectrum caught her eye.  
  
"Hey, Lay, I think I found -- what the HELL!"  
  
Nicole had picked up the unusual rock to examine it more closely. And dropped it as if it were red-hot. No, not as if it were red hot. Nicole picked up things that were white hot all the time without seeming to notice unless it dripped molten metal or set fire to her clothes.  
  
Lake forgot the items on the counter so fast that the clerk was left staring at her unattended wallet. She barely managed to restrain herself from vaulting over the intervening bin to Nicole's side. Nicole's eyes were as wide as Lake had ever seen them, staring down at the -- to Lake -- plain old ordinary greenish, vaguely phosphorescent, rock.  
  
"Nikki?" Training and instinct kept her voice low. "What is it?"  
  
Nicole shook her head as if to clear it. "I ... *felt* that."   
  
And since that was plain old ordinary impossible, Lake could only stare at her. Nicole reached down and picked up the rock again. Gingerly. Lake had never seen Nicole do anything gingerly, not even when she'd crushed a primed grenade in one fist. "It -- I think the word you'd use is 'stings'."  
  
Lake took the rock from her hands with alacrity and headed back to the counter, to Nicole's confused combination of relief and deep worry. "How much for this one?"  
  
Back in the microvan, the meteor fragment wrapped in two plastic bags and sandwiched between the nasty colas, Nicole was uncharacteristically off balance, and Lake was all too characteristically grim. "I think..." they both started at once, and then both laughed a little. "That we'd better collect some more of those meteor rocks," Nicole finished.  
  
"Exactly what I was going to say. Wynter would never forgive us for not bringing him enough samples to run every test ever invented on, probably including magic rituals."  
  
"Wynter is going to have two cows and a whole litter of kittens."  
  
"Wynter isn't the only one," Lake muttered through clenched teeth.  
  
Once Nicole knew what to look for, the bits and pieces left over from the meteorite strike proved surprisingly easy to find: she could spot them from a hundred meters away by the characteristic gamma-ray glow, invisible to any mammal's eyes. They collected several dozen of them, ranging in size from fingernail chips to one the size of a baseball. Nicole picked that one up, and an expression that had never crossed her face before tightened in her eyes: pain. Lake snatched it away from her and stashed it in the spare tire bootwell.  
  
"We sure got more than we bargained for on this trip," Nicole remarked with forced lightness as they continued into town. "Hope it doesn't turn out to be an inauspicious start...."  
  
"If it's worse than Chicago, I'll eat those rocks," Lake growled. Nicole gave her a bemused look. Lake, whose stomach at least was fully human, wasn't kidding.  
  
The prospecting had delayed them too late to catch school hours, so they drove around town looking for a place that teenagers would hang out. Finding a motel could wait, they both felt they needed to make contact with the student body before everyone went home to homework and chores. "Besides," Nicole pointed out, "This saves us the trouble of having to deal with the school administration and all their trillion rules."   
  
Lake was not fooled. Nicole had been badly shaken, and was impatient for action, something she was comfortable and familiar with. And no wonder. Twenty years of rigorous laboratory experiments had pretty much concluded that Nicole didn't even HAVE nerve endings or sensors for pain.  
  
Back to the drawing board.  
  
It didn't take long to find the primary high-school hangout. ("After all, it's not called "SMALLville for no good reason," Lake remarked unnecessarily.) Finding a parking place near the Talon among all the beat-up working trucks and shop-project cars took a little longer. They finally entered to a cacophony of teenagerhood slang, eyeball make-outs, and -- at least to Lake's nose -- the aroma of excellent coffee and chocolate. "Good! I was beginning to think these people might actually drink that awful souvenir soda." Nicole snorted. Even she would personally rather drink the bathroom cleaner. It had more taste. At least, insofar as her artificial chemical sensors could be defined as being able to "taste."  
  
Wending their way to the counter to place an order and give them time to take stock, Nicole skipped a step. "Target acquired. Check out tall, dark and plaid flannel there."  
  
Lake spotted the boy from their photos without trouble, since he was half a head taller than anyone else in the room except Nicole and two obvious jock types. She whistled softly between her teeth. "Damn, he's even prettier in person. He'll never make an agent, for sure. Too conspicuous. Okay, may as well get started. You absolutely sure?"  
  
"I can't see through his skin, and he glows three times what anyone else does in the low infrared spectrum. Does that count?" Nicole sidled up to the counter where Clark was thoroughly engaged with staring at Lana, who was trying hard to get some work done while being mooned over. Clark's infatuation with her was flattering, but not always comfortable.  
  
" 'Scuse me. Can I talk to the working girl here for a second?" Nicole clapped Clark cheerfully and companionably across the back, not nearly at full force, but certainly harder than she would have, or ever had, dared hit anyone or practically anything else.  
  
Clark, not braced for anything more than normal human contact, went sprawling. The shock on his face almost sent Nicole and Lake to the floor in gales of stifled laughter. The sound level in the Talon dropped to zero for a second. Then silence was broken by a titter, then a guffaw, then the buzz of conversational speculation. Clark Kent, the big farmboy who wouldn't play sports, sidelined by a woman. He wouldn't be able to wear red shirts for a week, it would clash with his blush.  
  
One other face caught Lake's trained and searching eye, a short stocky muscular boy with skin three shades darker than Nicole's. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't speculating. He looked every bit as shocked as Clark, and the gaze he turned on Nicole was not friendly. Lake, veteran of more deadly dangerous covert operations than these kids had years behind them, put the pieces together without even trying. *That one knows.*  
  
Pete, in fact, was the only one in the town right now besides Clark who knew that what he had just seen was flat impossible. Sure, the dark-skinned woman in what looked like leotards with a baggy shirt over it was big, and obviously in good shape. But unless she had a green rock in her hand, she shouldn't have been able to budge Clark so much as an inch.  
  
He hustled over to Clark's side and helped him up, prepared to fight or get his friend out, depending on the rock situation. In a fierce whisper: "You okay, buddy?"  
  
Clark was dazed by astonishment, but unhurt. "Yeah, I -- I guess I just kind of lost my balance."  
  
"No you-know-whats? Can you stand up?"  
  
Clark answered that by rising with the unconscious grace of Baryshnikov, of muscles only rarely fully exerted. "No problem." Turning to stare at Nicole, he muttered back "She really is just that strong." His eyes narrowed, as his subconscious prompted him to open his senses wider, to include the x-ray range that he'd only recently learned not to keep suppressed. Then his eyes, and his mouth, went round. "Pete -- I can't see through her skin!"  
  
"That's crazy, man!"  
  
"Maybe." His eyes narrowed again. "Maybe we need to have a little private talk."  
  
Lake observed the exchange with interest, filing away the revelations concerning their respective personalities. Her hearing was no better than average, either, but lip-reading was the least of an agent's training, and mentally focusing on details, both inborn and from practice, was something she did better than anyone else yet discovered on the planet.  
  
Nicole was addressing an offended but amused Lana, who felt bound to come to Clark's defense but couldn't help thinking the spectacle was funny. She'd seen some minor samples of Clark's strength, but sometimes he was awfully clumsy. And Nicole, for all her brusque assumption of Lana as a "working girl," seemed actually to be a very friendly sort.  
  
In fact, that casual winsome charm was a characteristic that Nicole had worked very hard to acquire. Her true nature made her unconsciously intimidating, and open threat was something a covert agent should only use on purpose.  
  
"Got a favor to ask of whoever's in charge here, honey," Nicole drawled. "That wouldn't happen to be such a young pretty lady like you, would it?" The phrase was a calculated risk -- most kids that age, Nicole knew, didn't like to be reminded of their youth, but were flattered by the suggestion that they were in a position of responsibility.  
  
"I'm the co-manager, and co-owner," Lana said steadily, earning her points in Nicole's and Lake's eyes for not being defensive. "Anything drastic, I'd have to talk over with my partners, but otherwise, if I can help you, that's what business is for."  
  
Not quite as brainless as her file had suggested, starting as it did with "cheerleader," the agents decided. Well, some people did eventually grow out of the popularity contest thing. Nicole shifted tones, subtly but psychologically effective. "We're here," she said just loudly enough that it carried to the nearer tables, "to interview high school seniors for college scholarships." Gossip about The Clark Pratfall at the nearer tables suddenly died in rippling waves as the information was passed in emphatic whispers. "We work for a cooperative foundation that has set up a trust fund for promising students from smaller communities, who otherwise wouldn't get the chance to take a full course load at a full-time university."   
  
She had the attention of nearly everyone in the room by now, without raising her voice beyond lecture mode. "If we could use your gathering place here as a base of operations, we can set up a table tomorrow afternoon and start talking to those of you who are actually interested in another two or four or six years of sitting through classes and taking tests." The smile she turned on the room of mesmerized high schoolers was nearly feral.  
  
Special Operations agents were in school for the rest of their lives, and their tests usually carried the death penalty for failing. Back to Lana: "You need to talk that over with your partners first?"  
  
"Uh, no, I think that would be fine with everyone." Lana felt dizzy. What else was she supposed to say? Even Lex Luthor had never pulled a stunt like this.  
  
"Super." Nicole turned her practiced smile on Lana, then on the room. "Anyone who's interested, be here at, what? Four? Tomorrow, with a short resume and wish list, then we'll get a quick count and talk with you in more detail after we've reviewed the prospects."  
  
Lake, as the more experienced agent and therefore the one who usually stayed in the background, stepped into the goggling silence. "And if you'll forgive my partner's forgetfulness in introducing ourselves, her name is Nicole. I'm Lanie. We work for the government, well, sort of, anyway, and we're here to help you."  
  
The room broke up at that old chestnut, and went into overdrive at the thought of being offered scholarships just for being good students from a small town, all thoughts of Clark knocked on his kisser forgotten, except by Pete and Clark himself. Clark and Pete exchanged looks that were definitely out of place in such a festive atmosphere. Pete nodded, a signal they had sort of automatically developed for "I'll cover for you." Clark vanished.  
  
Lake ordered two chocolate cappuccinos, eliciting an "ugh" from some of the kids at the counter, at whom she smirked. After months spent under cover on the streets of hellholes from Baghdad to Managua, the pseudo-sophistication of any aficionado's "good taste" interested her less than something that, to her, just plain tasted good.  
  
As they went searching for the microvan (even Lake's trained and near-perfect memory proved challenged by the haphazard and constantly-changing parking scheme of downtown Smallville teenagers), Lake having already downed one of the sweet caffeine bombs and jealously guarding the other, a faster-than-human figure suddenly interposed itself. The two agents glanced at each other and smiled. Target acquired, indeed. "What can we do for you, young man?" Nicole asked nonchalantly, continuing towards the finally-located microvan. In truth, she'd spotted it by the gamma-ray glow emanating from the trunk before Lake could work through the third-street-down, second-lane-over, six-cars-from-the-post, two-cars-back routine that they had had to develop at the Mouseworld parking lot.  
  
"I think you already know what at least one of my questions is," Clark said flatly, walking backwards so that he could face them. Fierce curiosity overcame long-ingrained careful paranoia. "But mostly I just want to know what you really ... you ... ooh...."   
  
They had nearly reached the microvan when the tall, muscular kid crumpled like wet paper. Nicole caught him reflexively, startled. The challenging expression on his face drained away along with his color. He looked like he'd been knifed in the gut.  
  
The two agents' eyes met again, this time in confusion. For the second time in one day, Lake saw something she'd never before even imagined possible: pain -- and alarmingly more so than Nicole's, a sickening agony reducing the boy in five seconds from defiance to helplessness -- on the face of someone she knew to be, for all practical purposes, invulnerable.  
  
"Kid?" Nicole realized that she was supporting his entire weight -- trivial to her, but still shocking to feel him collapse so suddenly and completely. "What's wrong?"  
  
Clark moved his head back and forth in the negative, not daring to tell even this obviously inhuman stranger about his vulnerability, no matter what else she already knew. That was a mistake, on top of the sickening dizziness and sudden migraine-level headache. He gagged, fighting to clench his jaw shut against the rising tide of bile from his knotted stomach. Icy sweat sheened his face and trickled down his ribcage, harsh counterpoint to the consuming burn inside his bones and blood. Gravity seemed to swim around him. His vision faded to cold gray vertigo punctuated by explosions of blinding green.  
  
"The meteorites," Lake guessed, an obvious connection given Nicole's reaction. "He can feel them without even touching them. The range must be pretty short; he was fine ten steps back. Let's get back to the building. Any trouble carrying him?"  
  
Nicole rolled her eyes. "It's not like he weighs all that much more than what he looks like. Kid's awfully skinny for his strength." She was already moving away from the microvan, faster than was strictly advisable for secrecy's sake, if there had been an audience, holding Clark upright with one arm and steadying his head with the other in the hopes of keeping him from vomiting, which he was clearly on the verge of doing.  
  
By the time they reached the alley behind the Talon less than a minute later, the greenish tinge had faded from Clark's skin and he could stand, though his breath was coming carefully and in uneven gasps. Nicole released her support and let him lean against the wall. "It'd look kind of suspicious if anyone saw me fondling you like that," she apologized. Clark waved weakly in acknowledgment. "So you have a problem with the meteorites too?"  
  
"Too?" That got Clark's still-disjointed attention. "You mean, you ... ? But you didn't ... You weren't ... What are you talking about?"  
  
"I can feel them, which absolutely nobody who knows me is going to freaking believe, and I don't like it, but they don't hit me anywhere near as hard as they do you. Probably because I'm only a lab critter, not from another planet. Offhand I'd guess that the meteors are from the same place you are, so the total effect is made to order just for you."  
  
Clark braced himself against the wall. That little speech was enough to make him dizzy and confused and worried enough without any help from the awful rocks at all. This, he didn't need. "I think," he said carefully, "that we need to talk. In private."  
  
"If you mean without Lake, you're out of luck; she's my boss. If you mean without the entire graduating class of Smallville High, that's what we're here for." As an afterthought, she added, "Along with the scholarships, of course. It's a cover story, but it's not a hoax."  
  
Clark glanced away from the woman who matched his height and strength to the small, pale, silent woman behind her. The idea that Lanie -- Lake? -- was the one in charge somehow frightened him. The glacier-colored eyes seemed to give him a hint of the depths of threat she might be capable of. He swallowed. "Could you come out to my place tonight?"  
  
The pale killer spoke softly. "I think you'll understand that we have certain secrets to keep, too, even from your parents and your friend Pete, at least for the present. Our first interview should just be between the three of us. After that, we'll draft our report, and you can decide just how much you care to share with those who know of your origins and abilities."  
  
Clark stared. She knew that Pete knew...? He was waaay out of his depth here. "I hate lying," he said harshly. "And I won't lie to my parents."  
  
"We're not asking you to lie, kid," Nicole said offhandedly. "We're just letting you know that maybe there will be a few more things you'll want to keep to yourself. You don't tell even your parents and your friend EVERYthing, do you?" She intended, and succeeded, in making it sound sexually suggestive. Clark blushed furiously, restoring his color.  
  
"Will you be all right for now?" Lake rescued him with a simple change of subject.  
  
Clark nodded. No dizziness this time. "Where can I meet you, and when?"  
  
"How many motels does this one-mart town have? Any time tonight, if you can manage it. Tomorrow night, if you have to make arrangements to get away." Both agents knew full well that Clark would be at their doorstep as soon as superhumanly possible.  
  
"I have some chores to do, and homework. I'll see you in a few hours."  
  
Nicole grinned, and Lake nodded. "Until then."  
  
Clark watched them walk back to the poisoned microvan (a fleeting cold shiver at the thought) and caught a trace of their conversation, wondering if they knew he could overhear them, or if they cared. "He's going to finish both farm chores and homework in a few hours?" That was Nicole, disbelievingly. Then Lake, "Just because he's nearly as strong as you are doesn't mean he's as slow, Nikki...."  
  
Pete was afire with curiosity by the time he got back to their table. "Dammit, man, what happened? All the details! Spill it!"  
  
Clark shook his head. "I have a -- private interview with them tonight."  
  
Jonathan and Martha learned more over supper, but were less sanguine about it. He understood that there was a lot that the two women had not told him yet, which was probably the part that they were reluctant to share with his parents, but that seemed less important by now to him than what they had already revealed. His parents, of course, did not see it that way. Trying to explain how important this meeting was to him, and that his secret was in no danger because it was already compromised, he was hoping to lessen their worry.   
  
Naturally, being so protective of their superhuman son, it had exactly the opposite effect. Still, be damned if he was going to sneak out of the house to a clandestine rendezvous without telling his parents at least what he knew of the truth.  
  
Martha tried to make light of it. "Going to a motel room for the evening with two strange women? Clark, what will people say?"  
  
Clark waggled his eyebrows at her in an attempt at humor. "At least they won't say I'm an alien." Martha fought down a snort.  
  
Jonathan didn't see anything funny about it. "Two people who know about your abilities, and know about the meteor rocks? And you're going to be alone with them?"  
  
Clark sighed. He had long since given up trying to teach his father's generation to use the word "meteorites." "Dad, it's not like they don't have secrets -- and odd abilities -- themselves. And if they'd wanted to hurt me or kidnap me or something, they could have just put me in the car right then and driven off. They already knew what was making me sick."  
  
Jonathan scowled. "I still don't see why they wouldn't talk in front of us."  
  
Maybe because of that very attitude, Clark thought, but didn't say. "Dad. Think of it as just another college scholarship interview. I mean, you wouldn't be there, either, right?"  
  
Smallville's one motel did occasional but steady business with people just passing through. ("At least they didn't call it the "Do Drop Inn." "Don't start, Nikki.") Clark jogged into the parking lot and spotted the microvan immediately. Eager for questions and answers and distracted by the prospect, he started unthinkingly -- and fortunately not at full speed -- towards the room in front of which it was parked. A stabbing cramping fire through his whole body and a wave of nausea and dizziness warned him just in time. Memory of the real world returned. He altered course for the front office and managed to get out of range before he fell to his knees, though he had to prop himself against the wall for a moment to catch his breath before he could school his expression into an unconcerned and unsuspicious facade.  
  
The clerk -- George something, and Clark was momentarily ashamed to realize that he'd barely bothered to remember him the few times they'd met -- looked up from his magazine and smiled at Clark, figuring the kid must have broken down or something. No reason why one of the local kids would be here otherwise. "What can I do for you, son?"  
  
"Um -- " his mother's earlier comment reminded him of just how this might look. "My name is Clark Kent, I'm here to see two women who checked in this afternoon? Nicole and, um, Lanie? Could you ring their room for me?"  
  
The clerk's smile vanished. "What kind of business do you have with them, son?"  
  
Frustration at even this much delay was enough to tempt Clark to give him a ration. What business is that of yours, mister? But this was Smallville, after all.  
  
"I was, maybe you heard, discussing a scholarship with them. They wanted to, you know, talk about -- " oh ghod, I almost said "extracurricular activities," and I can just imagine how he would have taken that -- "how I could make up for, like, some of the qualifications, the after-school stuff, that I'm missing, growing up on a farm and all." Congratulations, Clark, you have officially managed to portray yourself as a dweeb hick. Not the disguise I would have chosen, but effective enough to be scary.  
  
The clerk's expression relaxed. "Oh. Well, I guess you could use the lobby here for that. No problem, I'll ring them."  
  
Oh, right. Here in the lobby, we're going to talk about aliens and "lab critters" and killer rocks and whatever the hell it is that Lake is hiding. I don't think so. Maybe if I make a run for it, I can get past the van fast enough to knock on their door before I collapse.  
  
The clerk was speaking into the phone. "Ma'am, you have a visitor. Yes, ma'am, one of the students, about the scholarships. Clark Kent, his parents own a farm. What? Ma'am, I don't think that would be appropriate. You can use the lobby here, we have a table. What?" From the clerk's expression and paling face, one of the women was professionally saving Clark the trouble of giving him a ration. "Oh. I didn't think of that. My apologies, I -- Yes, ma'am." He hung up, his face wooden. "Seems they're -- ah -- quite eager to talk to you."  
  
Clark hoped that meant that one of them was eager enough to come out of the room and move the microvan. "Thank you, sir."  
  
The door to the lobby slammed open and Nicole strode in, flinging her arms wide. "Clark Kent! So glad you could make it. Nobody else seems to have been able to show up this evening. Working on their resumes, I guess. We've got a stack of paperwork back in the room for you to get started on, and some literature for you to look through, if you'll just come this way...." She shut the door firmly on the clerk's disapproving look. "Why didn't you just come on into the room? Surely you could tell where we were."   
  
Clark took two more steps, attention more on answering Nicole than on where he was, and stumbled to a stop at the cautionary blaze of pain. He had to swallow against the beginnings of renewed dizziness. Unsteadily, he backed away on legs that were suddenly threatening not to support him so well. The fire died back to a muttering warning.  
  
Nicole halted too, puzzled, then followed the direction of his gaze. She smacked her head. "Of all the things to forget! Hang on a second." She raised her voice, continuing on to the room. "Hey, partner! You wanna take the car and go grab something from the greasy spoon?" When the door opened, she jerked a thumb back at Clark, standing uncomfortably at the outer limits of what was, to him, a small star of deadly radiation. "Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody'll steal the piece of junk so we don't have to clean it out."  
  
Lake nodded silently and got in the microvan, moving it across the street to an uninspired Mom's Eats place. Clark stared. He could have sworn -- no, he could see -- that Lake wasn't carrying any keys.  
  
"Sorry about that." Nicole gestured Clark ahead of her to the door and locked it behind them. "Have a seat, kid. You okay, or do you need a minute in the little porcelain room? You look kind of rocky. Ouch, pun fully not intended." She flipped on the TV to a music station, background noise, and took a seat on the bed herself. Carefully. Clark noted that out of long familiarity with having to do the same thing himself, treating everything around him as if it were made of thin glass. "And don't worry about talking, we already swept the room for any listener crap and put up an interference shield. Maybe you can hear it, kind of a buzz? I can't, and neither can John or most of the others, but Lake and Randal and Little Sky can. Purely an individual thing. Shape of their ears or something." Thoughtfully: "Weird about those meteorites, huh? I usually suck in radiation for the fun of it. That's the first time I've ever run into anything so nasty. I don't suppose you know what the range of effect is for you, or if it's cumulative? Any experience with long-term exposure?"   
  
Clark's expression betrayed the memory of the endless tortured hours tied up in the cornfield with Lana's necklace slowly killing him, and Nicole made a sympathetic face. "Damn. Sorry. Wynter will want all the numbers we can think of and probably even more that we never would have dreamed up. Would you mind writing out whatever you can remember, at least the analytical parts? It's probably not the sort of thing you want to talk about a lot, much less play games with."  
  
Clark let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. As long as he could remember, his parents had worried that someone would want to lock him up and "study" him -- experiment on him. And here was someone bluntly asking his cooperation to prevent just that. "It -- varies, a little. Usually about five or ten feet is when it really starts to get to me, depending on how much there is. You must have quite a bit of the stuff in there."  
  
"Dozen pounds or so, maybe fifty pieces. The biggest one is a couple of pounds all by itself. A little denser than granite, but less than metal -- less than most radioactive metals, anyway. Sounds like a quantity-distance thing."  
  
"High radiation ranges usually follow an inverse-square relationship, not counting the quark derivatives," said Lake's voice from the door. Clark started -- he hadn't heard her come in. In fact, he hadn't even heard the locked door open. His eyes narrowed -- he hadn't heard, or felt, the van approach, either. And no, she still wasn't carrying any keys. "I brought some fried grease, if anyone needs chemical fuel. Otherwise, it's going to the benefit of any stray cats or dogs around here." Lake turned to him. "Nikki sees the meteoritic radiation in the high x-ray to gamma-ray range, but even she can't see what some wag called cosmic rays. How about you?"  
  
Clark blinked at her. He wasn't sure what kind of questions and answers he'd come here expecting, but if this was the way they started off, it sounded like he was going to get way more than he'd even hoped for. "I'm -- I'm not sure. I don't have anything to compare it, them, to. They glow.... Nobody else has ever mentioned a glow, but they know what they are when they see them. Like, when we go on prospecting field trips, or in science class."  
  
Nicole grimaced. "Out sick from school a lot, are you? Won't look good on the standard scholarship application, but we can fix that, along with the extra-curricular crap. Wynter's comp team can just hack your records again. Not a biggie." She waved her hand dismissively, as if faking school records was something they did for relaxation. In fact, as Clark was to later learn, it was less than even that much minimal effort for Special Operations.  
  
"I actually have a pretty good attendance record," Clark said, offended. "It's just a few days a year, and a few classes. And I do some of the extra-curricular stuff. Just not sports. Working on a farm, I have an excuse for not staying after school much."  
  
"We know." Nicole grinned. "I was just yanking your chain. And sympathizing a little. Never been to school myself, at least, not plain old ordinary school like you. That can't possibly have been easy, keeping your differences to yourself all these years. Damn impressive accomplishment, if you ask me."  
  
Lake, meanwhile, had silently retrieved a stack of folders and put them on the table in front of him. Clark glanced at it, and froze. His school records. His school records all the way back to the bits and pieces of kindergarten that his adopted parents had dared send him to. Every single class, every test score, every teacher evaluation ("A bright student, but his mind tends to wander"), every report, down to and including the school field trip where he'd been sent to the infirmary because he'd thrown up on Chloe when she had shyly flirted with him by bringing him a pretty green rock. "Do you -- mind if I look through this for a minute?"  
  
"They're all yours." Lake shrugged and went over to sit beside Nicole. "We have copies. Anything in there you want changed? We altered the police reports a little, but we can wipe them if you want. Not that it matters, since you're still a minor. Would you like something to drink? Maybe some of that awful souvenir soda? No, forget that, it's been sitting in the back with the meteorites, and may have picked up some contamination."  
  
"I might try it," Nicole volunteered, then caught the petrified look on Clark's face. "Later, though. Purely in the interests of science, right? At least it might be something I can taste. Anyway, since you left the van across the street, it would look stupid for you to walk back over there and back again without it."  
  
"There's some leftover detergent ammonia under the sink, if you want that," Lake needled her. "And looking stupid is our best disguise, remember? How about you, Clark? We brought some decent tea, if you care for it."  
  
"Tea is fine," Clark said in a strangled voice. Detergent ammonia? To DRINK?  
  
And then all the shocks he'd been put through for the day paled to background noise as insignificant as the TV advertisements that everyone of his generation had long ago learned to ignore. A box of tea lifted itself out of a small luggage case and disgorged two tea bags, followed by a plastic container of sugar. The box put itself away and the lid closed behind it. Two ceramic mugs came out of the cabinet and floated over to the faucet, where the water turned itself on, rinsed and filled the mugs, and turned itself off. The mugs paraded through thin air to the microwave, waited patiently while the door opened, inserted themselves, and sat quietly while the microwave did its own thing. The tea and sugar hovered over the microwave as if at parade rest, awaiting their turn to perform.  
  
"Lake," Nicole said in mock disgust, "Is SUCH a show-off."  
  
Lake lifted an eyebrow. "And who was the one who had to slap our boy here on the back hard enough to knock him down? You're lucky you didn't send him into a table. Or worse, the counter. Not only would the repairs come out of your pocket, but so would the lawsuits and the cost of psy-ops to make people forget the busted furniture."  
  
"Hey, my aim is better than that!"  
  
"Tell that to Wynter. Or better yet, to John. I'm sure even they could use a session of hysterical laughter every now and then."  
  
The microwave beeped and opened itself, and the hot mugs presented themselves in mid-air to the tea bags and sugar, like a dance in an Escher drawing. The sugar dumped fully half its content into one mug. "Clark? How much sugar do you like?"  
  
"Whatever," Clark whispered, eyes bugged out, torn between three cats' lives worth of curiosity and the instinctive desire to run like hell. The rest of the sugar went into the other mug. The sugar container spun once, bowed with a flourish, and went back into the travel case. The two mugs brought themselves over and settled comfortably in mid-air beside Clark and Lake.  
  
"Now that was definitely showing off," Nicole reprimanded her boss.  
  
"Conceded. But worth the effect, no? Remind me to buy more sugar. Hah, I almost started to warn Clark that it was hot. Go ahead and take it, Clark, it won't bite."  
  
Clark touched the mug as if afraid it would do exactly that. It settled into his hand like a small animal, just enough hint of resistance that it really did feel alive. He shuddered and downed the tea-flavored sugar water in one gulp. The warmth spread through him, more psychological than physical. He settled back in the chair and closed his eyes. "Okay, so much for my carefully prepared speech. I am officially clueless. You call the shots."  
  
The two agents exchanged half-smiles. Both of them remembered full well the shock of first meeting other strange ones, of learning that there were others who, if not precisely like them, were at least proof that the universe did indeed play dice with their insignificant-to-the-universe lives. And they had the advantage not only of double-teaming Clark, but of years of experience. The kid was handling it pretty well. Better than some of their own had done. Then again, most of their own hadn't already had to deal with coming from another planet.  
  
Lake leaned forward, the mug following her helpfully. "We told you no lies, but perhaps you understand now why we didn't tell you the full truth right away. We work for an independent agency interested in recruiting, well, we call ourselves "Specials." The majority of our, for lack of a better word, agents, do not have any, hmm, extra-human talents, though all of them are extraordinarily good at their jobs, and well trained to a degree that most people only dream of in bad fiction. But the few of us who can do things that no one else on Earth can do are the ace in the hole when things get really, really bad.   
  
"Simply put, Clark, we're here to offer you a scholarship and a job -- but in our employment, where you can be tested and trained to the limits, and not have to hold anything back." She paused to take a sip from her own tea, evaluating the expression that had flitted across his face at the word "tested." "And I promise, none of the tests involve invasion of your person or your privacy, and absolutely nothing at all without your specific written and legal permission. That's a strict rule of our top boss, Baron John, special abilities or no. Though I can't promise you that Wynter won't pester you with questions and beg you for demonstrations every minute that he's awake, which fortunately is only about half the day."  
  
"Specials." Clark blinked and left his eyes open. "I kind of like the sound of that. So Nicole is sort of like me, and you're, you did the thing with the tea...."   
  
"I'm a mutant," Lake confirmed easily. "I can harness metabolic energy -- " she grinned, an expression as surprising on her icy control as lightning across a clear sky. "You may have noticed the sugar -- to directly control an object's potential and kinetic energy and its relationship to the unified field. It works on pure energy, too, though less effectively. I could, for example, have heated up the water in the mugs directly, but it costs enormously more power to speed up molecules, or to convert photon packets from one form to another, than to simply open a microwave door and press a button. Mechanical advantage, psycho-telekinetic style. And Wynter is absolutely sick at the fact that I don't seem to be able to learn enough math to explain how I can mentally access his holy grail of unified field theory."  
  
"Winter," Clark repeated dazedly. "You keep mentioning that .. is it his name?"  
  
"Wynt the wart, we call him," Nicole elucidated. "Another mutant, and looks the part, since he considers even combing his hair once a year to be a waste of his valuable time. Further proof that even an IQ in the two thousand range does not endear a kid to personal hygiene. He's the one who helped Virgil Swann decipher the mathematical code for the signal about your arrival, which is how we learned about you in the first place. Thank the stars for e-mail; it would have really frosted the doc's cake to learn that his genius colleague was only seven years old at the time."  
  
Clark felt himself losing his grip again. "So you know...."  
  
"That your bio-parents called you Kal-El," Lake pronounced the break with scary perfection, "and by the way, "El" seems to translate as "ruler" or "leader" or "star" or some such; even Wynter and his Chinese-Arabian polyglot linguistics team master go around muttering about the mathematical-type symbology of the mixed letter-word ideogram combinations. That you're originally from a planet whose name, for the gods alone knows what reason, renders out as the same as an inert gas element, word taken from the German for "hard to find." Said planet seeming to no longer be there, or at least no longer transmitting on any artificial frequency used by any civilization we can think of, such as radio or laser."  
  
"And that's not good," Nicole took over, unusually subdued, "since radio is probably how your planet found ours. Earth practically outshines the sun in the radio range, you know? Anybody using radio alone would have called this solar system a trinary. Jupiter could have been another star with a little extra effort.... Anyway. According to Randal -- he's our prime empath, he tuned on you accidentally when you first found out about your spaceship yourself -- and it freaked him at least as much as it did you, I think -- you're significantly stronger than anyone else on the planet except me. I can bench press about a hundred tons, you?"   
  
At Clark's disbelieving look, "Well, you haven't filled out yet, I imagine yours will go up as you mature, especially if you work at it."   
  
The idea of working out to increase HIS strength had never even occurred to Clark.   
  
"Skin impervious to anything up to and including a megawatt laser, as far as we have info on," Lake continued matter-of-factly. "Nikki can stop a 50 cal, have you ever tried? Better wait awhile on that one too, then. Speed way past Nikki's, or anyone else we know of, and watch the sound barrier, shockwave booms tend to attract attention. It gives Randal fits when he picks you up when you're running, because his senses can't process what you see."  
  
"We all missed the danger from the meteorites cold, though, even Wynt," Nicole put in. "Who'd'a thunk you'd show up along with something that would hurt you? Randal might have gotten it if you'd ever been in real trouble," and from his expression, she guessed he had, "But he blanks on getting caught in other people's pain unless he's forcing himself, and who can blame him? You might want to mention it to the doc next time you see him, though."  
  
"The next time I ... ?  
  
"Kid, if you come to work for us, Virge is the least of the crazies you'll be seeing on a regular basis. Unobtrusively, of course." At Clark's hesitant expression, Nicole added, "But if not, were you really planning to just never darken his doorway again? He, for one, would be really disappointed, and you'd just be giving yourself an ulcer second-guessing yourself."  
  
"I can't ... I don't ... Does he know about you?"  
  
"Nope, although it's an open bet that he suspects an organization like ours exists. The man's not stupid, after all, and the world is full of things that didn't go according to logical projections or plans. He's never met Lake or me or Wynter directly, or maybe he'd guess. I can't pass for human on close inspection to someone who knows to look beyond appearances."  
  
Clark didn't know whether to be offended at that or not. "Me either, I guess."  
  
Nicole laughed, and Lake smiled a little. "Kid, you're as completely human as anyone whose DNA is just a little more compacted and maybe has slightly different protein structures. You come from a long line of people who passed their genes down the same old ordinary way any living critter does. Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.... So it's from another planet, so what? Hopefully we'll one day meet a whole incompatible ecology from another planet, and see just what's the same and what's different, but until then, your people at least picked a planet where you could pass visual muster and eat the local food." She stood up, and to Clark's horror, tossed her shirt and begin stripping off the leotard.  
  
"Nikki," Lake said warningly.  
  
"Oh, go sit in the bathtub. It's not like the radiation's gonna hurt him. Or like you were planning to have kids." To Clark, "the costume is actually metalized Kevlar, to prevent my normal base radioactivity from poisoning everyone around me. What passes for my stomach is a nuclear furnace, as far as anyone can tell. See, I was designed in a lab." She stepped out of the skintight outfit and stood naked before a hideously embarrassed Clark. "They did a pretty good job, considering it was a hit-or-miss experiment, but not perfect. C'mon, kid," exasperated with his blush, "Take a look. A good close look."  
  
Clark had hit puberty at about eleven, a little early, but not abnormal. But he hadn't known that, he was still worrying about the fact that his dad had warned him against getting into fights or picking up things that nobody else could pick up. When his body began going through hormonal changes, it terrified him, thinking this was yet something else to set him apart from everyone else. However, when he finally got up the courage to talk to his parents about it -- they hadn't seemed to notice anything unusual -- their reaction surprised him. Instead of expressing concern over yet another difference, they had both chuckled fondly. Martha gave him a biology text and told him to come talk to her when he felt he could do it without stammering. Instead, after finishing it, increasingly wide-eyed, he'd gone to Jonathan.  
  
Dad had taken him out in the field and compared and explained the various animals, then shocked Clark by dropping trou right there beside the fence and demonstrating in no uncertain terms that there were some weights that the old man could lift that his superhuman son still had a ways to go to match. Only that memory of basic frank biology instruction allowed him to open his eyes and face Nicole without fainting dead away.  
  
Then the embarrassment vanished in clinical detachment. For the being who stood before him, who passed so well for a woman in her form-fitting covering, was in all her candor less human-looking than a manikin. There were no variations in coloration on her "skin," no hair, no folds, no openings, no differentiations. Her shape was squared off, molded, flattened. Her breasts -- his eyes went there involuntarily -- looked like afterthoughts, as if they were plastic storage capacity added by stick-on.   
  
He moved his eyes back to her face, and saw the same indications of artificiality, now that he knew what to look for. There were no lines around her mouth or eyes, no pulse in temples or throat, no wrinkles in her neck, no indication of collar bones. Or ribs. No joints in her fingers, or elbows or knees. Her eyebrows and eyelashes and short bobbed hair might have been implanted, or glued on. There was no pupil or iris in her black eyes. She wasn't a mutant, or an alien. She was a thing.   
  
Not "she." It. Clark stared, helpless to look away.  
  
"Whereas you," Nicole grinned, standing before him with her fists on her fake hips, "are obviously fully equipped, and physically nearly mature, for normal human-type reproduction."  
  
"Ni-*cole*," Lake chastised.  
  
"My friend, when you live in a nudist resort all the time, you get bored with the packages, but that doesn't mean you don't check them out." Clark's ears glowed bright enough red for even Lake to see the heat waves. Nicole took pity on him and bent to put the bodysuit back on. "What's so great about being human, anyway?" she said softly.  
  
Clark's embarrassment turned to shame. Not "it." She. A person, just like he was a person. Someone who had trusted him with the truth and nothing but the truth, and deserved at least his respect for that in return.  
  
Lake distracted him by sending their mugs to the sink and having them wash themselves. "We do not, of course, expect you to sign on the dotted line right away. For one thing, you're underage. You'll have to at least finish high school and officially turn eighteen first."  
  
"Though Lionel's little empire did a shitty job on making your adoption records believable," Nicole broke in. "Give me a bleeping break, picking the day of the meteor storm for both adoption and birthday? -- Was that deliberately to make you a red flag? -- and Wynter had to be ordered at threat of being banned from the computer not to fix them without your permission."  
  
"For another, you have an established identity and background. Nicole and I and most of the others were raised in various projects that the Baron created under one disguise or another, but you can be traced back, and your background used against you."  
  
"Not to mention that you have no training in field operations." Nicole added, disguised once more. "It may not turn out to be the sort of work that you want to do. Weeks of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer panic is a pretty accurate description."  
  
"And there's no resignation from the Specials short of death. Once you're in on operations information, well," Lake smiled almost apologetically, "the secret you've guarded all your life is, to overuse a phrase, kid stuff."  
  
Clark swallowed, hunting for his voice. "So, um, what, exactly ... I mean, what..."  
  
"We did notice that English wasn't your best class," Nicole said lazily. Lake shot her a sharp look. Pointedly: "This from the slowest reader in the agency? Never mind her, Clark, she just wants to arm wrestle with you, and she can't afford to replace any more furniture right now. What, exactly, we want, is to let you know that we're here for you, that we're an option open to you, and that we're not just a few people you can trust, but a whole fairly capable organization that can guard your back." Clark thought of the way they'd dismissed Luther Corp as incompetent and decided that Lake was being modest.   
  
"We're available if you need any help. We won't pry into your personal life because we already know whatever we want to know. If you choose to come work with us, you would be welcomed. If not, I would imagine that you sometimes feel the same way all the rest of the Specials feel -- that you sometimes just need a friend you don't have to lie to."  
  
Clark sat up straight in his chair. His eyes stung a little, but the feeling was no longer anything too much for him to handle. He stood, that unconscious grace again. "I'd like that." He held out his hand, first to Lake, recognition of her command over even someone stronger than he was. "Thank you, Lake. Nicole."  
  
The two agents shook hands with solemn formality. Target acquired, all right. Beyond their best-scenario expectations. "Such a gentleman," Nicole murmured.  
  
Lake inclined her head. "Obviously a superior training program in his upbringing," she said, mock-analytically. "Perhaps something else we should investigate, to include in indoctrination of new personnel." She turned a calculating eye on Clark. "I don't suppose your parents could teach Wynter some manners ... no, that would be too much to ask."  
  
It took a second for Clark to think back on what Nicole had said about Wynter and his hygiene habits. Then he realized that he was being let in on a joke, and laughed. "My parents would love to have Wynter come visit. But they would insist that he wash up for dinner, and help out with the smaller chores, and eat all the food on his plate."  
  
"Wynter wash up for dinner?" Nicole said in disbelief. "When you fly to the moon under your own power, kid."  
  
Lake glanced at her and elevated an eyebrow. "Don't put it past him some day. Remember the old saw about Neil Armstrong and the woman next door."  
  
"You have a dirty mind, boss, and I ain't talking about the psycho-telekinesis."  
  
Clark, not being one for trading risque e-mail jokes, decided to let that pass. Chloe would probably know it, anyway. "And, Nicole? If you want to arm wrestle, I know an abandoned factory we could tear up without anyone caring about it. Problem is, it was one of the meteor strike sites, and those radioactive rocks are all over the place. If you wanted to add to your collection...."  
  
Lake dropped the faux-serious teasing for single-minded business. "Where?"  
  
"Over not too far from my place, actually. The old industrial section, before LexCorp moved in. Up route 40 and down the overgrown road. Here, I'll draw you a map." He went unerringly to the drawer that had complimentary paper and pen in it, and the two agents traded a glance again. It was unlikely that the kid was that familiar with the motel. Maybe he was learning to leave his x-ray range vision on in the background. That had driven Randal crazy too, being able to see what Clark was refusing to admit to himself he could see.  
  
"We'll pick them all up tomorrow while you're at school," Lake finished for him. "Don't forget that we do still have interviews with all the other students afterwards. You two can go tear up old buildings tomorrow night while I go through the submissions."  
  
Clark and Nicole grinned at each other. "You're on."  
  
"And I hate to break up the party, but being underage, you probably need to be getting home. We can't exactly offer you a ride in the van right now."  
  
"No." Clark made a face. "Um, lead shields it," he offered.  
  
No duh. Lake closed her eyes momentarily to keep from looking exasperated. "Lead is the obvious choice for protection against any radiation, being rather cheaper than titanium or gold and easier to handle than mercury. We ordered some lead foil this afternoon, in case you wanted to come take a ride with us later, but it's not exactly something that you find sitting on the shelves."  
  
Nicole looked thoughtful. "Hey, Lay, Could you block the radiation, or divert it, or change it around, the way you do heat?"  
  
"Hm. Probably, though I can't feel it, the way I can heat or microwaves. I can't tell what its frequency is, or its inherent energy level. We'll have to get the shop to rig up some testing equipment to give me an idea of what ranges and compositions I'm trying to alter."  
  
"Check it tomorrow for starters, I'll let you know when you're getting close."  
  
Clark hesitated. "I could help," he said reluctantly. "I mean, I can tell...."  
  
"Absolutely not," Lake said sharply, simultaneous with Nicole's "No way in hell." The anger in their glares took Clark aback, until he realized it wasn't aimed at him. "All the names of all the stars, kid, there are absolutely no scientific experiments in the world worth putting you in that kind of danger. Marie Curie wasn't an idiot, but she didn't know. You do."  
  
"Oh. Um." That was not exactly the kind of reaction his parents had been warning him about all his life.  
  
" 'Oh, um,' yourself. If we ever find out that anyone is actually even sorta-kinda thinking about doing something like that to you deliberately, they're only going to wish that it was just the CIA and IRS and FBI coming down on them all at the same time. John can be ... creative." Not to mention what Lake might do, Nicole did not add.   
  
The interrogation team that Lake had studied with included some characters that disgusted Nicole, but even some of them had been appalled by Lake.   
  
"But ... they hurt you too, don't they?"  
  
"Hah! Actually, I'm not sure. Never felt anything like it before, so I don't know exactly what to call it. Got me curious, mainly. I might even owe those rocks a vote of thanks. First indication that I might really have a nervous system and not just a set of mechanical receptors." Nicole's expression was hard for Clark to read. Wistful?   
  
What would it be like, never to have felt pain at all? It suddenly hit him what she was saying, and it stopped the breath in his throat. Being able to be hurt was her first indication that she might be a living person, and not a machine? Clark swallowed, hard.  
  
But Nicole shook it off with the ease of long practice and training, the indifference of someone who has seen far worse to worry about. "No one else except your parents and your friend knows that they can clock you just by picking up a certain kind of rock, right?"  
  
"No," Clark smiled, obediently following her change of subject. "Any more than they know who stacked the trucks on top of each other during the school dance."  
  
Nicole snorted. Lake pressed her lips together. "Probably not the best way to keep a secret."  
  
"He's a teenager, Lay. With power C.S. Lewis would cry over and no one else to talk about it with. Even you must remember what that was like."  
  
Lake's face went blank, but Clark could read her thoughts there as if he'd suddenly developed psi capabilities himself. *All too well.* He flinched from that careful control, picking up yet another hint of just how dangerous Lake could be. But her voice was as mild as her tap on his shoulder. "I meant it, kid. Time for you to be getting home."  
  
"Yeah, get some sleep. I plan to teach you some wrestling techniques tomorrow."  
  
Clark jogged at less than half speed all the way home, at barely human normal through town. He had too much on his mind to spare the concentration for dodging obstacles at speed. The refrain from one of the songs playing on the oldies station in the background in the motel kept wearing a groove among all the new information clamoring for his attention.  
  
There are times, when all the world's asleep --  
The questions run too deep, for such a simple mind....  
Won't you please, please tell me what you've learned,  
I know it sounds absurd -- Please tell me who I am.....  
  
Yeesh, thought Clark, and that was written before I was even born.  
  
Maybe I should quit thinking about how different I am and start remembering just how much we all have in common on this little blue world.  
  
His parents were, of course, waiting up for him, and nearly jittering with worry and questions. Clark's happy relaxation when he jogged in made both of them stand up fast and then sit down heavily with relief. "Clark, what happened? Who are they, and what did they want with you? What did you find out?"  
  
Clark grabbed a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and chugged it straight, taking shameless advantage of his mother's worry to violate a house rule. He also took the time to consider what they'd said about just how much he might want to tell them. They hadn't said a thing about putting him under any limitations, about what he should or should not say. They were trusting him to make his own decisions.  
  
Clark grinned broadly. "Well, they offered me a scholarship. And a job, when I turn eighteen. As a -- they call themselves -- " as they called me, Clark thought -- "Special."  
  
Later, lying in bed and looking through the ceiling at the stars, he thought dreamily of just how much he had decided all on his own not to tell his parents. About Lake's talent, and just how different Nicole was. About Wynter and Randal. About the fact that the organization of inhuman protectors had offered him something that no one else could.  
  
Not just friendship. Not just understanding. Belonging.  
  
The next day at school was almost as much fun. Pete kept giving him furtive glances. All the other students were wandering around in a worried daze, focusing on their resumes and presentations for scholarships. Clark was, for once, the only one in town without a care in the world. It was a strangely exhilarating feeling.  
  
The crowd at the Talon would have impressed an Oscar-hopeful movie opening night. Lake and Nicole were dressed in business suits -- Clark couldn't decide whether to gasp in amazement or burst out laughing at the sight of Nicole in pinstripes -- and the microvan, he was relieved to note, although it still glowed, was parked almost half a mile away and in a 90 degree direction from both the school and the route to his house. He established himself at a seat in the corner and watched happily, sipping a soda, practicing on focusing his hearing through the chaos.  
  
Sean, the class genius, was of course the first one in line, with a carefully-selected set of papers. He had obviously practiced before the mirror for hours, because his composure was as brittle as the betraying squeak in his voice. He stated his desire to go to Metropolis University to study biology and become a research scientist. "My mom," his controlled demeanor finally gave way to his need, in the face of the severity (false, though of course the students couldn't possibly know that) of their silent crossed arms and stony expressions, and he swallowed. "My mom died of diabetes. I want to work with people who might be able to find a cure."  
  
Lake and Nicole traded considering glances. "Duke, maybe? Or Emory?"  
  
"Or Brown or Columbia. Johns Hopkins if he wants to put up with the alumni. An hour's quick coaching on-line and he'll ace even their snooty interviews." Lake opened a suitcase that Clark was pretty sure nobody but he or Nicole would have been able to carry. "Here's some flyers, son. Check them out and do some research online. This is a big step, and you should give it all you've got. You don't cross a chasm without taking a leap." Clark choked on his soda.  
  
Sean stumbled away, his eyes glazed. "Duke...?" he was muttering. "Johns Hopkins...?"  
  
Three more Met U hopefuls later, all of which Lake and Nikki agreed with, and it was Chloe's turn. Jerking her chin up, Chloe put on her best "I am going to get what I want" face and voice, and declared her ambition to work for the Daily Planet.  
  
Lake and Nicole both looked amused at her bravado, and Clark remembered that they probably had nearly as much in the way of records on all of his friends as they did on him. "I don't think so," Nicole drawled, and Lake agreed. "What a waste."  
  
Before the shock on Chloe's face could slip into despair, Nicole added, "Yale? Harvard? Princeton?"  
  
"Bah." Lake waved a dismissive hand. "Too many rich spoiled frat brats. No, I'm thinking international. Rhodes. Oxford, for starters. Look here, she's already HAD an article published in the Planet. At age 15. If she doesn't have her own world-wide news corporation within a decade, I'll eat a, heh, a meteor rock." Clark snorted soda out his nose. It was a common enough phrase around town, but no one else knew quite what they were saying.  
  
"Roads?" Chloe repeated faintly, her muscles limp with the will to not misunderstand. "Oxford?"  
  
"Rhodes, as in scholarship," Lake said with a trace of completely manufactured impatience. "You know, the Bill Clinton route. Though it looks like you'd be better at reporting on world leaders and keeping them in line than being one. Just do us a favor and don't sell out to any of them."  
  
Nicole handed her a stack of flyers. "Go check these out. You might decide on one of the other colleges, but Oxford is a good place to start."  
  
"Rhodes," Chloe said again, eyes completely unfocused, thoroughly uncharacteristic of take-charge Chloe. "Oxford...."  
  
Nicole and Lake simply looked at her until she wandered off. "Next?"  
  
Pete, eyeing the two agents warily, got a four-minute lecture on the advisability of networking outside his own family, and the necessity of having other plans to fall back on whether he went into sports or not, and staggered away with a stack of flyers that Clark figured weighed as much as Lana did. Lana herself was recommended for a business degree and a caution about franchises. Clark forced himself to wait until last, just in case, although there were still plenty of people at the Talon, buzzing with ambition and trading flyers.  
  
Clark put his short resume, hastily created the night before at the insistence of the agents, carefully down in front of them. Act normal, he told himself. The amusement in Nicole's fake eyes was making it difficult for him to keep a straight face.  
  
"Um, I guess Metropolis U, though I don't have a major in mind yet. I'm good at math," he offered lamely.  
  
Lake fixed him with her glacier gaze. "How about science? Chemistry? Physics? Biology? Any advanced courses?"  
  
She was making fun of him deliberately, Clark realized. They already knew that science was one subject where his grades were below par, despite his make-up work, because of the number of times he'd had to skip class with a "stomach ache" when someone brought in a meteorite. He kept pre-prepared excuse-Clark forms from his parents in his locker.  
  
"I see you live on a farm," Nicole added indolently. Clark winced. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have noticed that Nicole had not even bothered to glance at his paperwork. Surely they weren't that bad at living a lie -- were they just trying to mess with his head because they knew they could? "Did you ever take apart a tractor just for the fun of it? Build something out of leftover parts? Fix things around the house?"  
  
"Um, no." Well, he'd had to learn to put some things more-or-less back together after crushing them, but that was necessity, not choice.  
  
"Not an engineer, then," Lake concluded, sounding disappointed. "How about economics?"  
  
Clark stifled an urge to throw something. They were definitely messing with his head. "Economics as in Gross National Product, and manipulating interest rates? Or as in saving family farms and small businesses from corporate takeovers?" He immediately felt snitty, and like something of a showoff himself, but Pete gave him a silent cheer and the two agents looked appreciative and even mildly impressed.  
  
"Hm, Lanie, we got any flyers from co-ops or non-profits? Sounds like we've found us a hero for charities."  
  
Clark rolled his eyes. The words carried to nearby tables, as they had no doubt been calculated to do, despite the fact that Nicole had not changed volume or pitch. Clark thought about her comment on her insides being a nuclear furnace and wondered what passed for her lungs. It distracted him, a little, from being impatient with her teasing. Hero, indeed. That one was going to be passed around the school for another week, at least "I really think I need an education first. And a job. I need to pay the bills before I go out working for free."  
  
"Agreed," Lake said neutrally, meeting his eyes. The pale steadiness was both reassuring and deeply, in some way that he couldn't define, scary. "The foundation funds a number of different forms of education, however. Perhaps you should consider getting a two-year degree in general studies and then taking some time off to gain some experience before settling on a particular interest. Some of our own best people were sponsored for a world tour before finishing college."  
  
Clark blinked at her, processing just what their "own best people" would be, then snuck a fast glance at Pete, and Lana, and Chloe, hoping they hadn't caught it. They were all, thankfully, preoccupied with their own potential futures. As they should be, Clark realized. "That sounds ... like something I should consider. Thank you. Do you, um..."  
  
"We're always available if anyone has any other questions," Nicole saved him, in that same carrying voice. "We're staying at the motel for another day or three, until we can get the paperwork all submitted, so feel free to ring us up any time." And then, so softly that Clark had to strain to hear it from a foot away, "Later?"  
  
"Factory?" Clark mouthed back.  
  
Nicole nodded. "It's clean."  
  
Clark's eyes lit up. One less problem for him in town. He went to join Pete as the agents gathered their flyers and paperwork and spoke to students who had lined up with additional questions. He noted with satisfaction that bookworm Sean was among them, eyes on fire behind his glasses and seeming to have grown three inches taller.  
  
"You," Pete pronounced, "are going to ride home with me, and you are going to tell me what the HELL that was all about." Clark just grinned at him.  
  
"When was the last time you swept your car for bugs?" And at Pete's disbelieving expression, Clark laughed and tossed his flyers into the air with all his strength. Fortunately, being paper, they simply fluttered the way paper would no matter who tossed them. Though, he thought, Nicole would accuse him later of showing off by catching them all again.  
  
He told his parents he was meeting with the Special agents again that night about their job offer. He left out the part about the arm wrestling. However, when a passing hiker a week later noticed that all that was left of the old factory was shreds of scrap, prompting an article from Chloe on the potential involvement of the vanished meteorites, Jonathan and Martha gave him knowing and admonishing looks for two days.  
  
That night, though, Clark and Nicole returned to the motel room in high good humor and thoroughly filthy. The van was thoughtfully parked back at the greasy spoon, for which favor Lake had bribed the owner by ordering two full meals three times a day, most of which did indeed go to the stray dog and cat population. Lake was surrounded by pieces of paper. Literally -- not content with turning every surface into a horizontal filing space, Lake had co-opted most of mid-air for matching applications to resumes to notes on what their ops people would have to do in order to secure each scholarship. Two piles near the ceiling were slowly shuffling themselves, giving Clark an eye-opening hint on just what powers of concentration and sensory capacity were required to manipulate objects and energy the way Lake did.  
  
"The prodigals return," Lake said distractedly. "Have fun?"  
  
"Whee!" Clark exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air. "Ow. I'm going to have a bruise tomorrow." He rubbed his shoulder. "What did you hit me with?"  
  
"Middle finger. I think it was a mistake to teach him judo," Nicole said cheerfully. "He throws people around through the air automatically enough as it is."  
  
"I'm trying to control it," Clark protested. "Besides, you don't weigh all that much."  
  
Lake snorted quietly. Nicole weighed in at 200 kilos, give or take.  
  
"Yeah, right. Just don't do it with metal, you'll leave handprints. And someday you may be up against something in your own weight class who's not as gentle as I am --" Clark gave a loud "hah!" at that -- "so you'd better not be so reluctant to use your whole body, instead of just your arms. But in the meantime, there are lots of faster and easier ways to subdue people. Maybe Lake will let us practice pressure points on her."  
  
"You mean like a Vulcan nerve pinch?"  
  
Lake sighed and put the paper into neat stacks for later completion. "In a way, though any good nurse can show you the basics. We can rig a practice dummy for you with a simulated nervous system back at operations. For now, however, I'd like to keep my neck intact, thank you. Paralysis would make it difficult to work undercover in the field."  
  
Clark blanched. He'd been so carefree for the past hour, he'd almost let himself forget the lifelong ingrained habit of never-ending caution. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean...."  
  
"Child, relax." Lake smiled. "I've been working with Nikki for over a decade, and I'm still in one piece. So is she," Lake added thoughtfully.  
  
Clark blinked. Neither of the women seemed to think that was a joke.  
  
"There are other lessons we can start on, though, besides judo through steel walls and snapping people's spines," Lake offered. "If you have the time." She rose.  
  
Clark's mouth fell open at the same time he tried to swallow his tongue. Lake didn't stand up -- she rose, literally, from her seated position, unbending until she was vertical, without touching anything at all. Clark forced himself to shut his mouth. Okay, he'd known she could make things move around by thinking at them. Why had it not occurred to him that she could do the same thing with her own body?  
  
Lake hovered one meter away from him, one meter away from the ground, and held out her hand. "Care to try?"  
  
Clark reached out hesitantly, like the kid reaching for ET. He touched her fingertips. She slid her palm into his and closed lightly on his hand.  
  
The sensation was indescribable as her mental field washed over him, through him, filling him with information he did not know how to process, and couldn't help absorbing. He felt dizzy, disoriented. He felt wonderful. He felt as if his strength were being drained off in some unknown direction. He felt filled with unknown power. He felt cut loose from all he'd ever known. He felt as if he knew exactly where he was, in relationship to all the stars in the universe, for the first time in his life.  
  
"Close your eyes," she said softly, reading the incredible conflict on his face and, directly, in his synapses. "Gravity is a place, a fold in the dimensions, part of the powers of existence, of space and time. Orient yourself to that. Gravity is not just "down." Gravity is a force of the universe. Feel the core of the Earth, the shape of it. Hold yourself steady in place, in relationship to the whole planet."  
  
It came to him. He was in place. He could move with it or against it. It was like swimming, sort of, a little, knowing which way was which, not by the feel of the ground, but by the feel of the water sliding against your skin. This was why astronauts trained in a big water tank, he thought. You had to learn to adjust to different senses.  
  
But this wasn't touch, wasn't water. This was gravity, directly into his brain.  
  
Nicole had stopped breathing. She didn't need to breathe, of course, air was just for making sounds with. But she had developed the habit over the years, just as she'd worked to develop the habit of blinking eyes that did not need, or make, moisture.  
  
None of the reports had mentioned anything about Clark-El -- and they were definitely going to have to do something about the stupid alphabetical code names -- being able to fly. It had been a subject of endless speculation for Wynter, given young the non-terrestrial's extraordinary biological energy levels -- on the one hand, Lake's psycho-telekinetic ability to defy, or harness, gravity, was partly due to her wildly extreme metabolism, but on the other, Nicole herself couldn't fly, despite all the attempts to teach her, and despite all the enormous energy she could both absorb and generate. She just couldn't wrap her mind around that trick. Wynter, however, who knew the math down to the subatomic level cold, simply couldn't access the energy, which sent him into bouts of throwing things.  
  
But Lake was not lifting Clark. She could not normally lift much more than her own weight, which was another reason why she hated heavy clothes. She had managed to get that direct perception, that unified field theory thing, into Clark's head, somehow, simply through their contact, and he had taken to it like a baby duck to water. Clark had picked up the trick without even trying.   
  
Which probably meant that he wouldn't be able to explain it either. Wynter was definitely going to throw things.  
  
Lake slipped her hand back until they were barely making fingertip contact. "Steady, steady," she murmured. "Reach out from your center. You're localized on the planet. But you can feel the moon, too, and the sun. With practice, you should be able to feel the galaxy as well, the gravitational core of the Milky Way." Lake grinned, that astonishing incongruous grin. "Though I confess I've never tried to reach for the center of the local cluster. Wouldn't do me much good anyway. A few billion light years is out of my jurisdiction."  
  
"The moon," Clark murmured, his head moving as if seeking it. "The sun. Yes..."  
  
Lake let go gently and backed quietly away through the air. She'd never actually taught anyone to fly before, so she wasn't sure what his reaction would be. "Very good. Now open your eyes, and concentrate on keeping your balance."  
  
Clark opened his eyes, and for a few seconds they were dreamy and bright with new knowledge, the eyes of a child to whom the whole world is a wonder. Then his eyes widened as he took in his own position in mid-air. "Whoa!" He fell to the floor with a crash.  
  
Lake snickered, maintaining her own position in the middle of the room, arms folded. "At least you didn't fall UPward. I did that a few times, when I was first learning."  
  
Clark shut his eyes. "I can't fly. People can't fly."  
  
"Look at me," Lake said sternly, teacher-mode. "It's just gravity. We tamed lightning. We use electromagnets for the sheer convenience of it. We use semiconductors for kids' video games. Your birth society apparently beat the lightspeed barrier, and if there are only eleven dimensions, it will offend my sense of symmetry. Look at me. It's just gravity."  
  
Clark looked at her, instinctively obeying the voice of command despite the panic. It's just gravity. It's just a nuclear bomb. It's just a supernova. It's just me.  
  
Lake was still simply floating in place, supported by nothing except air and anti-gravity, glacier eyes slicing into him as sharply as the green radiation. Okay, it's just me and her.  
  
Lake's expression softened, and she extended an offering hand again. "Care to try one more time?"  
  
Clark chuckled shakily. "Not tonight, thanks. I think I need to be getting home anyway." He stood up, and Nicole remembered to inhale again. He inclined his head. "And I need to think about things. I mean, your offer, all of this, is really attractive, you know? But you said yourself that it might not really be what I want to do."  
  
"Yes. We know." Lake slipped through the air back to her original position, and piles of paper began to stir. "We're not here to push you, child. But time has a way of passing, whether you want it to or not."  
  
"Oh, Lake, please tell me you are not going to give him THAT lecture."  
  
"That," Lake said dismissively, "Remains to be seen."  
  
Clark ran home. The wind got most of the dirt off of him, so his parents only pestered him for half an hour before he begged off for sleep he didn't need.  
  
It's just gravity. Clark closed his eyes, smiling, and dreamed of flying. ___________  
  
It was probably not a coincidence that the old Luthor Corp warehouse caught fire while they were there. Nicole would not have put it past Lake to have started it herself, and she would not have needed pyrotic psycho-telekinesis to do it. Matches were cheap.  
  
The fire alarm branged out while they were in the midst of follow-up interviews, which were going like wildfire themselves. ("How much money were you planning to give away, here?" "As much as it takes to get the kid on our side." "John is going to shit a brick." "John steals a million dollars a week from the CIA's black ops line items alone just to prove that he can do it. He wouldn't care if we BOUGHT Met U.")   
  
Nicole had to admit that it was a pleasure to be able to put so much hope into the next generation's eyes. Gods knew they didn't have much else to look forward to, in this economy, in this time and place.   
  
Her head snapped up at the alarm, then she relaxed, locating it as outside the building, so not necessitating evacuation. Lake, however, stood just as if it had just been the in-between-classes school bell, without haste, without panic, without hesitation. "I believe there may be a situation which requires our attention. If everyone will please collect their belongings and see to their family and friends? Remember your fire drills. I promise you, you'll get a belly full of them at college too, and usually in the middle of the night."  
  
The students laughed, a little nervously, but accepting. They'd been through tornadoes, after all. No reason to expect the world was ever going to take it any easier on them just because they were getting scholarships.  
  
Lake glanced around. Clark was already gone. She sighed. "Just hope he doesn't do something stupid before we can get there. I don't suppose you could see him at that speed?" she remarked to Nicole.   
  
The big woman shrugged. "I couldn't even see the heat trail. At least he didn't break the sound barrier inside the coffee shop." Nicole hesitated, halfway inclined to put a hand on her partner's shoulders the way she did when something went really, really wrong. She knew Lake too well to misread the signs of something set up to investigate her misgivings. "Something I should know about here?"  
  
Lake's pale controlled eyes betrayed nothing. "Just pursuing a suspicion. If I had anything definite, you'd be the first to know."  
  
Nicole didn't sigh, because it wasn't an automatic reflex to her. But she thought about it. Sometimes Lake seemed less human than anyone she'd ever met.  
  
The warehouse was, in the vernacular, fully involved. Lex Luthor was on the scene himself, being interrogated by the fire chief, who as a matter of course suspected that the Luthors existed just to give him grief. Lake strolled up and took charge with the ease of long practice, subjugating the fire chief without his even knowing it, and shocking hell out of Lex, who thought he'd learned all there was to know about that particular tactic.  
  
"Anyone in there?"  
  
"No," said Lex, Nicole, and Clark simultaneously, who had appeared at Nicole's elbow out of thin air in a backblast opposite from the direction of the fire. Lake prayed to gods she did not believe in that Lex had been distracted enough not to notice. She gave the two x-ray scanners an evil eyeball, one eye for each, as a warning to shut the blank up.  
  
"Any hazardous materials that could prove problematical in firefighting? Explosives, corrosives, potential poisonous combinations under heat?" Lake made it clear that her question was aimed at Lex, but kept a quieting glare on Nicole and Clark. Clark at least had the presence of mind to look abashed.  
  
"Not that I know of." Lex rubbed his head. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
Lake held out a hand in introduction. "Lieutenant Commander Lorraine Anderson, US Navy hazardous materials team, retired." It was not, precisely, a lie. Lake had undergone a plethora of hazmat training, and there was a military record for several of her many aliases. "In town on a special operation." Clark choked. "Just thought I might be able to help."  
  
"Oh, well then. I never turn down expert volunteer help." Lex's characteristic smirk did not have much force behind it. "No, there's nothing in there particularly dangerous. Artwork, furniture, old papers, the like. Collectibles." He rubbed his head again. "I should have friggin' known," he said with sudden vehemence. "When I inherited this wreck from the old bas -- man, it had a clean inspection record. "I should have KNOWN that he would rather buy off the inspectors than pay to install a decent alarm and fire suppression system. I should have KNOWN that the ass -- excuse me, ladies, Clark -- rat's carcasses would have thought they were still on the payroll, and kept falsifying the reports. The place is probably eaten through with meteorite-mutant termites, too, the way daddy dearest left things. I should have burned all those "gifts" he gave me myself when I first got here."  
  
Nicole clapped Clark on the back when a coughing fit threatened to strangle him. Braced this time, Clark staggered but kept his feet under him. Clark wondered if he could blame it on the smoke. Lex might not buy it, since he himself wasn't affected, but then, Lex was obviously angry and oblivious to minor physical discomforts.  
  
A firefighter came up to Lex, sooty and breathing heavily. "Sir, we're not too sure about the condition of the floor. The boys say it feels like it's about to give way. We can keep the water on, but...."  
  
"Meteor-mutant termites, what did I say?" Lex acknowledged bitterly. Abruptly he lost his temper, and went into a full take-charge mode that impressed even Lake. "Get your people out of there!" he shouted. "Every one of them, all the way out! Pack up and go home! Let the -- " he used a string of profanity that made even the firefighter's eyes widen -- "burn to the #$%^! ground! I will not have even one person so much as singe his eyebrows because of my @#$%^! father's penny-pinching! He doesn't like it, he can come rescue the @#$%! Van Goghs himself!" Lex stomped off. Nicole looked after him sympathetically.   
  
Clark matched her gaze, then looked down, weighing his options. The only reason Nicole didn't giggle was because she didn't know how to make her throat work like that.  
  
"I could...." He offered hesitantly.  
  
"No way in hell," the two agents cut him off simultaneously, in two different voices. Nicole, less hard-line, added, "Check the high x-ray spectrum again. You really think old man Luthor keeps Van Goghs in a lead carton?"  
  
Clark looked again. In fact, he'd entirely missed the part about there being a section that was simply blocked to him. Something else he needed to be trained on, he realized, remembering the time that he'd scanned the trailer under which his father was trapped and not seen him, not caught the fact that the ground below it was not just invisible to him, but simply not there. X-ray vision tricks obviously needed more paying attention to than lessons from reading Sherlock Holmes books could give him.  
  
"Got it?" Nicole said softly. "Now try to shift your focus higher, up to the gamma-ray range. Squint and think, itty-bitty wave lengths."  
  
Clark raised his expressive eyebrows at her, with a quirk of the Kent smile. Then he turned back and turned serious. He squinted and thought, itty-bitty.  
  
The green glow -- it wasn't green, precisely, it was in wavelengths that humans had not bothered to give color names to, but he associated it all too painfully with green -- made him stagger backwards in sheer reflex, though it was a good twenty meters away.  
  
"Hah, got it, did you?" Nicole punched him on the arm companionably, at no more than Pete's strength. "Learn something new every day, if you aren't careful."  
  
"What was he doing with -- why did he -- " Clark stammered voicelessly.  
  
Nicole gave him the same careless grin that she had given him when they first went full-bore and put each other through the wall in a rolling tangle. "Who knows? Maybe he likes the color." Then she sobered, and stared after Lex. "But I think my bosses will be interested in that question."  
  
Clark's own personal fears relaxed. He was getting the impression that if Lake and her boss were interested, he didn't have to worry about it. Though maybe someone else did. He wouldn't have wanted to be in Lionel's position right now.  
  
Nicole took him by the arm and led him away. "That was not, by the way, just a demonstration of why you should be wary of rushing in where angels fear to tread. The firefighters had in under control, as much as it could have been. What else would you have done?"  
  
"Um, maybe saved some of the stuff. There were valuable things in there, after all. Maybe irreplaceable things. Heirlooms...."  
  
Nicole snorted. Not having any heirlooms herself, she was singularly unimpressed by the idea, though she could see how the farmboy would have become attached to things he'd grown up with that might remind him of home. "Buy a vowel, Clark. Do you really think that the Luthors would leave anything really valuable in an unsprinklered warehouse? It was a disguise, and probably for that lead vault. Lex did everyone more of a favor than he'll ever know. When the fuss dies down, we'll come back here and seal it up on top of the rubble." Nicole turned and glared back at it. "And wire it to see who comes looking for it."  
  
"The discussion Nicole meant to start with you, however," Lake said from behind them, "was not about doing something idiotic like having the entire fire department see you run into a building they had just evacuated. The point is that experts and the people responsible had already made a decision. There was no danger to the populace or the environment. There were no rescues to be made that were worth risking anyone's life. Those with the proper equipment and training were on the scene, and had made a judgment call. Whatever else you *could* have done -- there was nothing at all that you *should* have done, even if you had been at no risk whatsoever from anything more than tipping your hand."  
  
Clark simply could not understand that. "But if there's anything at all I could have done to help...."  
  
"Mm. I'm going to recommend that you sit through a few training sessions with firefighters and police, to get a little sense of reality knocked into your head. Even you can't be everywhere and do everything, Clark. You will have to learn to prioritize your resources, because the simple dictates of reality and physics are going to ration what you have."  
  
"You remember the miners who were trapped? And the buildings that collapsed? And the wildfires? And the last earthquake? Would you care to guess how many of us were involved in the rescue efforts, and what we were doing?"  
  
Clark looked somberly at both of them. "I'm guessing, not all of you."  
  
"Good guess. Maybe there's hope for you after all."  
  
"Only those of us who could be spared from even worse things, Clark, and by worse things, I mean the things we would prefer never make the news at all."  
  
"Techs to help with the communications equipment and rig and maintain things in the field. A few extra hands to tote water and food and supplies. Some money diverted for medical supplies. But kid, neither you nor I could have dug down to the miners single-handedly, and Lake can't hold up an entire collapsing building, and Little Sky's pact with Mother Nature does not include putting out wildfires or controlling earthquakes."  
  
"And even if we could, even if we could do it all the time, everywhere, no matter how many of them there were," Lake's eyes were distant, and somehow frightening, "It would be the wrong thing to do, because we are not gods, and we must not ever try to play god."  
  
Nicole pushed that one carefully to the back of her mind. Lake had, in fact, been a god once, courtesy of an untrained and deranged telepath's probe that accidentally unleashed the full power of Lake's psycho-telekinesis, and she had very nearly made a casual move to kill everyone and everything on Earth in the conviction that she could do a better job by starting over from scratch. It had taken the sacrifice of two hundred and forty seven lives, including two of their own people, to get it through to her that destroying was, after all, far easier than creating, and that until she had mastered the latter, she was -- "wasting resources," was the phrase she had finally acknowledged.  
  
Her limit on being able to lift no more than her own weight was unconsciously self-imposed, the last desperate internal defense of what had been left of her more-or-less sane mind. Lake had instinctive access to the basic combined forces of electricity, magnetism, and gravity. She could shatter planets with a thought. Best not to remind her of that.  
  
"Human beings are their own best resource, kid. They not only *can* be heroes -- they *need* to be heroes. They need to *have* heroes, and not just among those of us who don't have to dodge bullets. They need to know that not only are they not helpless against the big bad universe, but that they can take it on and sometimes even win. The human race, and most other species on this planet, have done pretty well on their own for a couple of hundred thousand years, after all."  
  
"It is not our responsibility to make sure absolutely everything goes completely right for everyone all the time. People have to face adversity on their own, and take responsibility for themselves. If they think they're being taken care of, they not only get lazy and careless, they get resentful. They become less than what they were born to be."  
  
"We don't start wars. We don't finish them. Maybe we clean up a few stray nukes." Nicole grimaced. "But the former Soviet Union is a big place, and we can't get them all. The people who let it happen in the first place have to feel like they're involved in the cleanup."  
  
"We can't stop factories from polluting, or rockets from exploding. We can't stop madmen from taking over countries, small or large. And Clark -- NEITHER CAN YOU."  
  
"We're damage control, kid. Whether you decide to join us, or to go public, you can't save the world. You help where you can. But you have to pick your battles."  
  
"I could have helped Lex, at least," Clark said sadly, looking over at the flaming building where who-knew-what keepsakes were being destroyed beyond any resurrection.  
  
"If one of the firefighters had gone down while I was here, I would have stepped in myself. If it had been worse, like a hazmat thing, Lay would have too. But in the meantime, there are firefighters engaged in pitched battles all over the world, and neither one of us can be at most of them. It's their job to do, not ours. Granted that they ought to be paid better, but you have to let them handle what they can, because they have to know that they can."  
  
"You could do all the chores on your farm and let your dad sit and read all day, too, right? Would you ever do that, even for a favor?"  
  
"Of course not! It would kill dad if I ... oh. I see what you mean. He was mad enough when I did it when he had a broken leg. Said it made him feel useless."  
  
"There you go."  
  
Lex strolled back up behind them, and Clark noted with relief that his presence didn't appear to catch either of the agents off guard, as if they'd been tracking his position all along. He took for granted that they would have steered the conversation in another direction if they'd thought Lex could overhear. Come to think of it, it was kind of loud what with all the milling around here right now, and they'd been talking in that trained pitch that always seemed to carry only exactly as far as they wanted it to.  
  
"I understand that you two are the new philanthropists in town, too," Lex said mildly. "You have a particular interest in my friend Clark here?"  
  
"Among others," Lake said easily. "It's always a shame when talented individuals don't reach their full potential just because they don't have the proper resources."  
  
Clark choked. No doubt Special Operations had a file on Lex, too.  
  
"You recognize talent when you see it, do you?" Lex's eyes wandered over to Clark, with rather more interest than his presence with the visitors would justify. Clark felt suddenly uneasy. What if Lex, too, were keeping a file on him...?  
  
"That's part of my own talent and training, Mr. Luthor. Speaking of which, may I congratulate you on what I believe to have been an excellent judgment call. No doubt it was a hard decision to make, considering what you lost, but putting the firefighters' safety first was the responsible thing to do."  
  
Lex's eyes narrowed. "Thank you." His face relaxed again, into that characteristic not-quite-smile. "I'd hope no one would think I would have done otherwise."  
  
"Of course not, Lex," Clark put in immediately.  
  
"Clark is about my only vote of confidence in this town," Lex told the women, with an acknowledging nod at Clark. Lake detected both gratitude and resentment. She wondered if Clark did, and just how far and deep that resentment extended. She flicked away the temptation to scowl. That wasn't just a combination guaranteed to breed trouble, but one of the book-classic basics for sociopathic backlash. Which she had read, with interest, about herself and her fellow Specials, in relationship to the "ordinaries" they worked with.   
  
Who resented whom? The agents who couldn't punch through walls or fly, though they had hard-won skills and capabilities and records that most of the Specials would never be able to match -- or the inhumanly talented, for never having been given the choice of being normal in the first place? "It seems you should actually be quite respected in this town," she said neutrally.  
  
Lex turned to look at Clark, a long, considering look. "Actually, Clark seems to be the one who's our own home-town hero," he said casually. "At least, he's always there in the thick of things. I half expected him to be over there ... trying to help the firefighters."  
  
"That takes years of training," Nicole said bluntly. "I doubt a kid like Clark would be that stupid." The tone was maybe a little more warning than it should have been. Lake hoped Lex would take it as a warning to him rather than to Clark.  
  
"Half the town is out here to watch the spectacle," Lake added smoothly. "Surely that's not unusual in a small town."  
  
"In Smallville? A fire is hardly even news, in this particular small town, except when it involves the Luthors. My father's legacy," Lex added, in a tone so bitter that it made both agents blink. "As you can see." He swept an arm at the burning ruins, barely-controlled anger marring the veneer of the suave playboy-in-charge.  
  
"I'm sorry, Lex," Clark offered sincerely, meaning more than the building.  
  
Lex's mask came back. Lake recognized it, and saw through it, with the surety of experience far more effective than x-ray vision. "There was nothing you could have done," he said softly. "Thanks for coming, though. See you later, Clark."   
  
The file on Lex had mostly concerned his involvement with Clark. His father's collection of the deadly rocks, and the rocks themselves, were a new development. Lake was deeply disappointed with herself for not having investigated Lionel more than cursorily. She did not look forward to the chewing-out she was certain to get from John on the matter, but their discussion of the direction and details of the next assignment was a priority matter.  
  
Their team had been planning to move on to the developing overseas nuclear situation, and Clark was only one person, but he -- and his training, and his choices -- might well be the most important weapon in the whole planet's arsenal some day.  
  
Lionel knew at least something about Clark, and his intentions were, at best, suspect. Lake readily admitted to paranoia, but in her opinion, if the Luthors were stashing radioactive meteorites in secret for purely scientific research purposes, then there was an equally strong possibility of the Pope converting to Islam. Lex's innuendo turned Lake's suspicions to concrete and tempted her to stop Lex's heart right then and there on general principles.   
  
At that, he would be lucky. She intended to get creative with Lionel.  
  
For now, and for Clark's sake, and from his actions today, she would give Lex the benefit of a minor doubt. Perhaps he could even be salvaged, to a certain extent. But Smallville and the Luthors were about to become a pin on the Baron's map.  
  
"And thanks for the help with the scholarships, ladies," the young multi-millionaire added, unaware of how close he was to obliteration incarnate at that second. "You've just inspired the next public relations project for Lex Corp. Assuming I can ever get my dad's fingers off the purse strings." He half-bowed and took his leave.  
  
Clark looked after him unhappily. "I wish there was a place in your -- um, well, a place for someone like Lex. He needs a friend too." The look he turned to the agents with finished the thought: and not to have to lie to, not have to hide from. His eyes spoke of the helplessness, and hopelessness, of the situation. Lex had had to live a lie his whole life, pretending, deceiving, competing, with his father. And Clark knew that, because of that, he himself could never offer the complete trust that Lex so desperately needed.  
  
Nicole nodded sympathetically at him, understanding. But Lake's gaze followed Lex, and there was neither sympathy nor pity in the glacier eyes.  
  
Once the fire excitement was over with, Clark headed home to the ubiquitous chores, a plan in his head. He cornered his mom first, counting on her maternal instincts to counter his dad's native suspiciousness. "Mom? If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to invite Lake and Nicole for dinner. I can help cook," he offered, against her incipient scowl.  
  
"Was this your idea, or theirs? I don't like the idea of them prying...."  
  
Clark sighed in exasperation. "Mom. What is there left for them to pry into? They already know about the rocks and the powers and the spaceship -- it was one of their people who helped decipher the language." And wouldn't it be hilarious for Wynter to actually come visit.... No, best not to bring up the kid genius who didn't comb his hair quite yet. "I just thought you might like to meet them."  
  
"Oh. In that case, honey, certainly. I hadn't planned much in the way of dinner -- would they mind pot pies and salad?"  
  
"Nicole drinks cleaning detergent," Clark told her with an evil glint, and ran off to find his dad before Martha could demand a clarification.  
  
One phone call later, and the agents were pulling up at the Kent farm. Nicole shook her head in bemused admiration. "Not exactly what the Baron would have chosen as a venue for the most important experiment on Earth."  
  
"Hardly what Sagan would have envisioned for a First Contact, either. But it seems to have turned out all right. So far. If it had been very nearly anyone else who found Kal-El...." Neither one of them had anything to add to that. If it hadn't been for the Baron, either one of them could have been world-threateningly dangerous, but no more so than the farmboy.  
  
Clark came eagerly out to greet them and stopped cold in his tracks before he came near the van. Nicole grinned at him. "The lead foil came in today. Look for yourself." Clark looked, and sure enough, the entire back of the van was a blank wall. He grimaced. "You'd think I'd have learned to look for stuff like that by now."  
  
"Yes, you would," Lake said severely. "Obviously some training and practice on the subject of sensory capabilities is in order. You ought to keep your visual awareness at full spectrum all the time, at least in the background, considering those meteorites."  
  
"Um. But then I'd see...."  
  
"People's underwear?" Nicole chortled. "It's just cloth. It's just skin beneath it, just it's just bones beneath that. You get used to it, kid."  
  
Martha and Jonathan had come on to the porch to greet their company, a little hesitantly, in time to hear those last remarks. They looked at each other with curiosity. Not exactly what they'd been expecting, considering Clark's glowing descriptions of superhumans, but they certainly didn't seem to be anything to worry about.  
  
Lake turned to them and offered a grave handshake. "Mrs. Kent. Mr. Kent. A pleasure and an honor to meet you."  
  
Nicole followed suit. "Especially considering what a job you must have had raising the brat there."  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Oh, like this is a big secret? How many pairs of shoes did you go through? Not to mention the food and repair bills."  
  
"Fortunately, he didn't wear shoes much around the farm," Martha chuckled. "Pants either, for that matter. He kept ripping them up, when he wasn't just shucking them for the fun of it. A good thing we didn't have any close neighbors."  
  
"HEY!"  
  
"And repairs to the doors and walls weren't all that bad," Jonathan admitted, getting into the spirit. "Clark finally did learn some carpentry, though it was years before we trusted him with a hammer."  
  
"If you bring out the baby pictures," Clark warned, "I will personally go open the back door of the van."  
  
Nicole snatched his wrist. "Oh, no you don't. I want to see the baby pictures."  
  
Clark automatically tried to pull away, and Nicole clamped down on a pressure point. Clark's eyes widened. It didn't exactly hurt, though it was certainly a new experience for him.  
  
Martha and Jonathan looked puzzled for a second. Yes, Clark had mentioned that Nicole was inhumanly strong, but to be able to immobilize their Kryptonian son with a one-handed grip on his wrist? And what did he mean by the reference to the back door of the van?  
  
Lake gazed at him for that same second, considering what he'd just revealed about his psychology. It made sense, of course, in retrospect, since the only person he'd ever been able to blackmail was himself, but still.... Wynter and the psy-ops team would definitely be interested. "We picked up about fifty kilograms of the radioactive meteorites for study, which I would rather keep with us than try to mail," she answered the Kents' questioning look, inclining her head in the direction of the microvan. "A clean-up team will be here in the next few weeks for the rest. Frankly, we hadn't known they were such a problem, or we would have removed them much sooner." In response to his parents' dawning horrified realization of what Clark had just threatened to do to himself, she added calmly, "I don't think we really need to see the baby pictures. Let him go, Nikki."  
  
Clark rubbed his wrist melodramatically. "THANK you."  
  
"In fact," Lake went on seriously, "I wish we had known to come here a few years sooner." Her brooding gaze returned to Clark, making no attempt to conceal what she was thinking. "We usually prefer to find our potential Specials much younger, to help them with some of the -- questions." The loneliness, Clark heard in her voice. The alienation. The nights spent staring into the darkness, asking, why am I so different? What do I do next?  
  
And yet, they made it look so *easy*. Nicole, who might not even be a living being, for all that she or anyone else knew -- even when he squinted and thought, "itty bitty wavelengths," he still couldn't see through her skin, and maybe she herself couldn't either. He'd seen her construct of a body. She'd flipped him -- him! -- over her head and thrown him through a concrete and steel wall. Sidearm. And still the mental picture he associated most with Nicole was of her lounging back on a motel bed and watching oldies videos.   
  
And Lake, who looked purely human to his eyes, yet who was somehow the most frightening person he'd ever met, who even Nicole deferred to, who intimidated even Lex. Lake, who kept secrets even he couldn't imagine. And she had smiled a completely unguarded smile at him and made a sugar bowl dance and bow for him.   
  
They were so casual about it. Clark shook his head. Being an alien no longer seemed like such a big fat hairy deal.  
  
Lake smiled at Jonathan and Martha, not that startling lightning-blaze smile, but fond and friendly. "Still, we could hardly have done any better than you have, and in some ways not nearly as well. Clark has excellent ... manners."  
  
Clark grinned. "One of their people actually refuses to wash up for dinner. I can't even imagine you ever letting me get away with that."  
  
Jonathan and Martha smiled uncertainly. It wasn't often that they got to see their son in a playful mood, but.... "Well. I can see we have a lot to talk about. Won't you come in?"  
  
"Since neither of us are vampires...." Nicole quipped. Lake cut her off. "Your security system is LuthorCorps, isn't it?"  
  
Jonathan made a face. "That's just about the only thing available."  
  
"Nicole. Scan? I'll get the generator."  
  
"What?" Martha, Jonathan, and Clark all looked equally puzzled. Then Clark picked up on what Lake meant by asking Nicole to "scan," and followed her gaze. "Why, that son of a..."  
  
"Clark!"  
  
"Sorry, mom. But there's some kind of bug attached to our monitoring system."  
  
"Why, that little -- "  
  
"Mom!"  
  
"If it's any consolation," Lake remarked, returning from the microvan with a two-handed-sized device, "It probably isn't specific to you. From what I've learned of Lionel, he's likely bugged every security system in the county." She set the tiny interference generator inside the door and stared at it a moment, feeling for the frequencies. The machine moved around uncertainly under her probing, as if it were restless. Jonathan and Martha suppressed the impulse to run screaming. Clark grinned.  
  
"That should do it. Nikki?"  
  
"Full shot," Nicole confirmed. "You guys will probably get a visit from a "technician" in another day or so, after which, I'd keep your inside discussions to the cows and the corn. But for now, everything said in this room stays in this room."  
  
Jonathan's normally sun-rugged face was pale. "All the things we've said before...."  
  
"Are no doubt recorded somewhere, and will be gone over by some flunky in due time, along with everything every other person around here has said, and six-of-one will get you that half of Metropolis is on tape, and a good proportion of Washington, for that matter, though the Russians have probably found all the plants in their own embassies. Lionel's blackmail files alone must take up an entire building; it's a wonder he has time to ever do any actual business. But don't worry too much. LuthorCorps' files are about to undergo an extensive restructuring. Nicole, did you send that signal earlier?"  
  
"Duh." Nicole turned away from the shocked family and pressed, what looked like to Clark, something on her left breast. Clark looked away.  
  
"Um, well," Martha said brightly, "Would anyone care for a drink?"  
  
"Just so long as it's not that awful souvenir soda," Nicole answered seriously over her shoulder. "I'd rather drink ammonia."  
  
Clark burst out laughing. His parents glared at him. So much for his good manners.  
  
Dinner went perfectly. Lake and Nicole told a few of their milder stories, and asked detailed questions about farm life (in case they ever had to use it as a cover, though the Kents didn't know that). Clark's upbringing was mentioned offhand a few times, nothing that made him threaten to go open the van again. The scholarships were discussed in depth, and Martha smiled a great deal at the prospect of new bright futures for her son and his friends.   
  
Nicole complimented the cooking, and made a show of her preference for organic. (Not entirely a put-on, Nicole could taste pesticide residue, though truly it made no difference to her.) Lake ate three helpings, and washed the dishes, sans psycho-telekinesis, though she did seem to finish the task suspiciously quickly. She diverted attention from that when she made Martha gasp and then laugh by spinning a dish on one fingertip and then seeming to frisbee it in between two others. "Sleight of hand," she remarked. "Good coordination practice. Never know when it might come in handy."  
  
(Aside from the work with the interference generator, and despite the Kent parents' obvious burning curiosity about what made their son so relaxed around these two, she had mentioned only that her talent was mental, not physical. Reluctantly, the Kents did not try to pry further. For all the good their attempts at questioning would have done them against the subtle skills of covert agents anyway. They were reminded however, a little sheepishly, how resentful they were over people prying into their own family privacy.)  
  
Clark raised his eyebrows. It would have been easy enough for her to do with her mind alone, but at his speed, and with his senses more-or-less increasingly tuned to the wider electromagnetic spectrum range, being able to catch her deliberate misdirection, he had actually seen her hands move. Acquiring such an eclectic variety of purely ordinary skills and training was beginning to appeal to him more and more.  
  
Even Jonathan was in an expansive good mood by the time the desultory after-dinner conversation was declared an official end to the day. (Lake had provided entertainment in the form of satirical imitations of politicians, which caused Jonathan to guffaw and gave him an excuse to expound on political opinions of his own. Some of his statements caused the agents to make polite noncommittal sounds and Clark to seriously consider promising to go out and stick his head in the van again if he didn't stop.)  
  
Nicole offered to help with the evening chores, but after cautioning Jonathan that she knew less about farms than he did about disarming nuclear bombs (not true, after their discrete grilling, but still a good line), Jonathan laughingly declined. Clark hesitated, habituated to his own evening routine, but reluctant for the visit to end. He realized that it was unlikely that he would get such an easy chance to just talk with his, well, peers, again, any time soon.  
  
Jonathan smiled at his inhuman son. "Go ahead and say goodnight to your friends, Clark. I ran this farm before you were born, I can do one night by myself. But don't forget your homework. Not turning in homework is one thing that can't be erased from your record."  
  
Lake's smile was a half-quirk of the lips and a tiny nod in Jonathan's direction. "Your father is a wise man." About the homework and chores, anyway.  
  
Martha gave them both a clear-eyed thanks and an embrace just for being there, which made the agents exchange looks again. It wasn't often that they got acceptance, much less thanks, for simply being who they were. The Baron expected no less than everything they had, and even their own "normal" compatriots, who, although they sometimes stepped carefully around them, rarely gave their expertise, much less their personal lives, a second thought. But Martha went back into the house singing to herself.  
  
"Um. Well." Clark looked down and toed the dirt, and Nicole hit him playfully for it, a light two-thousand-pound slap across the shoulder. Clark staggered, but he was braced this time, and he shoved her back. A wrestling match ensued, brought to an abrupt halt by Lake's sharp command "NOT near the house."   
  
Clark picked himself up. "I don't suppose ... you know, is there any way to get in touch with you, just to, sometimes, talk?"  
  
For answer, Nicole turned from where she sat and started writing numbers in the dirt. "Phone. Code. Memorize. You said you were good with numbers."  
  
"I'm good at math," Clark corrected. "But I do have a pretty good memory."  
  
"Your synapses don't deteriorate, except from the radiation," Lake speculated. "Wynter is going to have three more litters of kittens waiting for you to turn legal age so he can beg you to work through an encyclopedia's worth of math tests."  
  
Clark looked up from the breathtakingly-long string of numbers that Nicole was tracing in the dirt. "Didn't you say he's still underage himself?"  
  
"I didn't say, but yes, he is. But he wrote most of the paperwork himself too, so he's the only one who can sign himself in. Even your parents can't sign for you."  
  
"Wow," Clark admired. "That's pretty overprotective, isn't it?"  
  
Lake's considering glance up at him was pale steel. "No," she said softly. "But it's as protective as we can make it. And I think you can imagine why."  
  
Clark looked away, his nearly-invulnerable eyes suddenly burning. Ryan. Kyla. All of them. If only he had known about these people earlier. He had their resources at his back now. Or at his front. But the other "special" people in his life had had no one but him, and he hadn't been enough.  
  
Nicole stood up, reading his expression, and simply put a hand on his shoulder. "We know, kid," she said gently. "But like we said. Some things are out of even our hands. Nobody can be everywhere, do everything. Not even us."  
  
Us. Implicit in her tone was that he was included in "us."  
  
"Randal is a very practiced and controlled empath," Lake offered encouragingly. Lake, who Wynter had privately categorized as psi-fire, a mind-murderer, could put an astonishing amount of synthesized encouragement into just a few words. "He's one of the lucky ones -- John found him in time. He doesn't have the healing talent himself -- our "magic" healer is also unfortunately underage -- but Ran should be able to help William."  
  
William...? Oh, Cyrus! They knew about -- ? Well, of course they did. They probably knew which book was upside-down in his locker, never mind about someone who'd claimed to be an ET. So Cyrus was an empath. That explained a lot. And there would be help for him. And a place.  
  
"Memorize," Nicole commanded, mock-stern, to take his attention away from the fact that his eyes were suspiciously wet. Clark obediently looked at the appalling list of numbers. Nicole smiled a little, hand still on his shoulder. "It keeps the telemarketers from bothering us, you know? Just don't use a cell phone. Even politicians listen in on those."  
  
"I guess...." Clark concentrated, and the 68-digit phone number settled itself in his head as Nicole scrubbed it out with her foot. Now, so long as he didn't get hit on the head by a green rock.... "And if I forget?"  
  
"We'll be in touch," Lake said, that lightning-flash smile that so contradicted her professional persona. "We still have to talk about your scholarship, remember?"  
  
"Oh!" Clark's face lit up, changing subjects with the resiliency of a teenager who still had the whole world in front of him. "Yeah, I was thinking about what you said, about taking off and kind of traveling around the world, getting some experience....."  
  
"We have a team that can help you with the languages," Nicole offered, brushing off the dirt. And of course, she did not say, we'll have at least one operative to keep an eye on you wherever you go. We're not about to risk letting you slip through our fingers. You have no idea how valuable you are. I would hope that you never have to, but I know better.  
  
You still have no clue what you're up against in this crazy world, child of another planet and a small-town farm. Or of what you can be. What you SHOULD be. Nicole and Lake, the two most dangerous people on the planet for right now, exchanged a look and a communication deeper than telepathy. To hell with "target acquired." That either of them would have killed without qualms for Clark was a given. That both of them would have to back off, for his sake, to let him work through some things by himself, was far harder.  
  
"Passports and so on you ought to learn to do by yourself, like any ordinary operative. Heh! Call us when you run into a wall over the vaccinations. We'll already have the forms printed out, but you ought to at least show your face in a few offices for the record."  
  
"Don't worry, Clark, we're not going to lose contact with you." Lake's voice was her namesake, as it had been when she first began to learn her inhuman control, a deep reflective pool under an open sky. "Whatever you choose to do with your life, we will be there for you. And for all those like you, whenever we can."  
  
"Like me?" Clark froze. "You mean, there are others...?"  
  
"From other planets? Wouldn't give me a heart attack to hear it, you know? If I had a pump organ, that is, which nobody thinks I do. Earth is like a breeding ground for Clarke's Law.# We have seventy-three Specials in our org alone, and Wynter has hardly had time to run a DNA analysis on even half of whichever of us he can get samples from, and if we'e already got all of us weirdos hanging around this whole world, I'll eat one of those rocks myself. And not everybody chooses the covert route. You aren't the only one who reads Warrior Angel, fer pitysake."  
  
Clarke's Law? Clark laughed. Even Lex collected Warrior Angel. If he only knew!  
  
"The future will be what it will be," Lake said calmly. "We just take it as it comes and do what we can with it." Philosophy, Nicole thought, was easy for someone who had killed her first assailant before she could walk. She kept that thought to herself. At least Lake hadn't given him the whole lecture.   
  
"In the meantime...." Lake held out her hand.  
  
Clark looked automatically at her feet, prompted by some sense he did not yet have control of. She was hovering a few inches above the ground, in contact with nothing but air and the forces of the universe.  
  
"Care to try again?"  
  
Clark looked nervously into the open sky above her. He knew now that his fear of heights was due to associating every attempt to climb Greg's treehouse with the bouts of head-pounding dizziness and cramps and weakness it brought on. The childhood embarrassment of awful sickness and fainting spells had actually been caused by the meteorites in the old foundry next to it. Just something else to make him look like a loser for the rest of his life.  
  
But he also remembered what she'd said about the possibility of falling UP. "Um, what if I...." He waved a hand uncertainly at the air above her.  
  
Lake smiled, that startling lightning presence of pure joy that belied her terrible inhumanity and made her -- well, just another someone. Like him. "I'll catch you."  
  
Clark grinned back, and reached out to touch her fingertips.   
  
__________  
  
*Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Law, as an addition to Murphy's Laws: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." 


	2. Interview, Epilogue

Epilogue  
  
Okay, this was inspired by you people who submitted reviews, thank you very much evil contemplative grin. See, feedback is its own reward. And punishment. (Someone commented that Lake creeped him out. I did a little dance of joy. Success! Lake is SUPPOSED to creep you out. Lake is supposed to creep out EVERYONE. The fact that she lives in my head should creep you out, too. Sometimes it even creeps ME out. But Lake took it as a compliment, and came back to participate in this little scene. Besides, I (we?) have been wanting to do this since we first laid eyes on Lionel, that nasty blankety-blank....)  
  
Set, oh, I dunno, early in the third season. Mixing in your own characters tend to weird up the timeline. Not that the show or comics have ever been real concerned about the timeline. But Lionel is about to become, hm, less of a threat.  
  
A little cursing, no sex or nudity, no drugs, but if you have a weak stomach, stop right here.  
  
Interview, part the second. As you may have guessed by now, Lionel's.  
  
The room was warm, rich, comforting. Not "comfortable." Not comforting the way a favorite blanket was. Comforting the way only obscene amounts of money and its flagrant abuse could be, to someone who took pleasure in flaunting it.   
  
Carpet deep and thick enough to hide a small pet. A fireplace with a servant to keep it stocked, controlled, swept. Wood paneling that probably had destroyed a small forest. Leather, and the smell of dead animals, losers on the food chain. Marble imported at great cost of human labor and suffering. Stained glass ostentatious enough, and wastefully hoarded out of public view enough, to make a saint curse.   
  
Lionel would have had the chandelier made out of blood diamonds -- diamonds that had been stolen so many times that each facet represented a death -- if the damn things hadn't been so hard to string up properly. Drilling a hole in hundreds of 56-facet diamonds was more effort than it was worth, even for the people he ordered around.  
  
Lionel leaned back, took a sip of his brandy, and closed his eyes. He didn't even particularly like brandy. Truth be told, he preferred mixed drinks. But haughty billionaires did not drink things with little umbrellas in them.  
  
He went blind.  
  
Being blind is not the same as closing your eyes. A sighted person can still tell the difference in light levels through closed eyelids. There are still visual cues. There is always the knowledge that you can open your eyes. Even if you've been blindfolded, one of the more terrifying experiences in deliberate torture, you still believe than someday you will still be able to open your eyes. Blindness, though, is like trying to see color with the end of your nose, and no amount of staring or fighting will bring back the missing sense.  
  
Lionel was blind. He knew the experience. And he did not like it.  
  
Lionel snatched for his emergency button, his safety line, his last resort.  
  
Then he discovered something far more terrifying than the sudden blindness.   
  
He was paralyzed.  
  
He could still breathe. He could move his head. But he could not move his hand. The glass slipped out of suddenly lax fingers and fell. It didn't shatter on the thick carpet, but it was gone. Just like the rest of his body. His legs didn't exist. His back was no longer aware of the feel of the chair. His heart beat. He could breathe. But the rest of his body, from the neck down, was absolutely not there.  
  
"It's not difficult to allow you your autonomic reflexes while removing everything else," said an unfamiliar voice. A woman's voice. A casual, controlled, unimpressive voice. Lionel tried to swallow and discovered that he could do that. He was, he realized, being allowed to do that. "But it would be even easier to cut it off."  
  
Lionel was not stupid. Lionel was quite paranoid, as his long and venturous life had forced him to be. He understood the words very quickly, and with no hesitation or miscomprehension, just as well as he understood that it was thoroughly impossible for someone to have entered his mansion, his room, without his forewarning and permission.  
  
He was blind and paralyzed. There was a strange woman in his room. He understood the situation all too well.  
  
"What do you want?" His voice was as steady as it could be, under the circumstances. It hurt to talk, to breathe. Lionel replayed the part about "keeping you breathing." Drugs? A paralytic gas? Some kind of electronics, focused on his nervous system? The possibilities flashed through his mind, intriguing a part of him. He was up against a formidable adversary.  
  
He understood formidable adversaries. Part of him relished the challenge. The part that wasn't gibbering in panic.  
  
Just as abruptly, he could see again.  
  
The small pale woman was sitting at his desk, fingertips steepled, light blue eyes the color of a frozen lake. Lionel was suddenly more terrified than he'd ever been before, an order of magnitude more terrified than he had been even when he found himself blind and paralyzed without warning. Whatever had been affecting him hadn't just worn off. She had canceled it, as effectively and inexplicably as she had no doubt caused it.  
  
She was letting him see her.  
  
That meant she didn't care about him identifying her.  
  
That meant he was going to die.  
  
"What do you want?" he repeated, and was sick and ashamed at the quavering he heard in his own voice. "Money? It isn't necessary to torture me. I can give you all the money you want."  
  
The glacier-eyed woman considered him for a long moment, expressionless. Lionel found himself admiring her skill. Damn, she was good at the subtleties. With someone like that working for him, he could fire half the rest of his staff.  
  
Then he remembered that he was only still breathing because she had, somehow, allowed his diaphragm and heart to continue functioning. The rest of his body, from the neck down, was completely gone, as far as his nervous system was concerned.  
  
"I want to know about your warehouse in Smallville that burned," she said softly, a voice that almost purred. "Why you maintained it in that poor a condition. Why it was there. Why you bothered."  
  
"The WAREHOUSE?!" Lionel would have shouted if he'd had more control of his own lungs. "That piece of trash? I was glad it burned. I should have done it myself."  
  
"Indeed?" Her eyes flickered, considering him. It felt like being drowned in icy water. "Why didn't you?"  
  
Lionel sighed. She permitted it. "Honestly? In order to cause another problem for my wayward son. He needs a few more lessons in the real world."  
  
The pale woman stared at him. No, not "stared." She simply let her glacier eyes rest on him.  
  
"It was convenient." Lionel tried to shrug. That, she was somehow not permitting. "What," he demanded, "Is so damn important about the damn warehouse?"  
  
She smiled, and rose, and came towards him. Slowly. Lionel suddenly discovered a whole new level of terror. "I burned it," she remarked. "Professional curiosity. Your son came. He made some interesting decisions. You didn't come. I wondered why."  
  
Oh. Lionel closed his eyes, wishing for blindness again. She was playing cat-and-mouse with him. She already knew the answers. He was going to be tortured to death just to satisfy this lunatic stranger's "professional curiosity."  
  
"This is about the meteorites, then."  
  
The ice maiden stopped in her approach, and crossed her arms in front of her, head tilted slightly, quizzically. Lionel would have shuddered if she had let him. Lionel hired professional killers all the time. Half of them would have run screaming from the look she was gracing him with. "Why would you think that?"  
  
"I am not," Lionel grated, "usually held captive in my own damn chair, through some unknown technology, by someone who beat the most expensive security system in the world, over a few cheap reproductions of artwork."  
  
"Ah." Astonishingly, to Luthor, she retreated to the desk, leaning her backside against it. If it was a move calculated to reassure him, it did exactly the opposite. By now, Lionel was pretty sure that the innocuous-looking small woman did not make mistakes. "Tell me about the meteorite collection, Lionel."  
  
Somehow the use of his name was the worst violation yet. Maybe the way she said it. Not spat out, not said with distaste. As if it bored her.  
  
"I think you know," he accused softly.  
  
She touched a fingertip to her lips. Stroking. It could have been a deeply sensual gesture. It was anything but. "I know that they're responsible for many inexplicable things in the area." She matched his soft, accusing tone, reasonably, chillingly. "They're radioactive, after all. Dangerous. Any high school science class would know better than to leave them around unsecured. People panic over such trivialities as radon in their basement, over RTGs on spaceships, yet use those rocks for paperweights and souvenirs?"   
  
That, on the other hand, was definitely spit out. "Stupidity. You are not that stupid, Lionel. Why would you have a collection of mutagenic, teratogenic, potentially poisonous remnants of a fairly recent and poorly investigated meteor strike, in a warehouse otherwise full of, as you say, worthless trinkets? Why not in a laboratory? Why not a research facility, or a university?" She straightened again, and Lionel would have backed away if he could have. "Answer me, Lionel."  
  
Luthor met her eyes, and knew there was no pity, no bribing, no excuses, no way out. He was superb at reading the faces of his enemies, no matter how poker-faced they were. This was not a poker face. This was an open promise of death. If he was lucky.  
  
"I was looking into making mutants," he said tiredly. "You already know enough about me to have gotten in here. This could hardly come as a surprise."  
  
Lake didn't show it, but in fact, it did surprise her. She had been entirely focused on what Lionel knew about Clark. She hadn't expected such a mundane explanation, or such a ridiculous excuse. If it had not been for her decades of training, she would have burst out laughing.   
  
Maybe some people would think it was violating individual rights and all that crap to mess with a person's DNA and produce a bizarre kid against his-or-her will, but Lake and most of her fellow Special agents had already been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and washed it in bleach, and so what?   
  
Making more mutants? Like there weren't enough already? Like even Lionel thought he could USE them? Crusted rotting cheese on a crossed computer node, had Lionel not even read the local papers since he sent his own son here? Shape-shifters, out-of-control "superboys," people who froze things and people who set sprinklers on fire, and Lionel wanted to make MORE of them? John was going to throw things while she rolled around on the floor in hysterical laughter, and Wynter would make the world's worst bad puns.  
  
Well, no. The Baron, their boss, who pleased himself to go by the name John this century, had given this one to her alone, while Nicole went ahead to Korea without her, and even Wynter didn't think nuclear war was funny. Lionel was a crumb on the table, and catching up with the other situation would be hell, but John and Wynter and her partner Nicole all agreed that she personally had to be the one to follow up on any threat to Clark. No one was going to treat it as a joke.  
  
Especially when it came to Lionel.  
  
An amateur would have said something at that point, derided Luthor in some way, put the ball back in his court, but that would also have given away an advantage, because anything she said would have given Lionel information.   
  
Lake was not an amateur. She simply regarded him.  
  
Lionel tried to shift nervously. He couldn't, of course. "Surely, you --" he couldn't resist a smirk as he made a guess, knowing how it annoyed most people, not knowing how boring such ploys were to Lake -- "Of all people, might understand that people who have received, mm, extraordinary talents from the meteors could be quite useful to a competitive businessman."  
  
Lake came as close as she ever had to gurgling. It would be HOURS before she could get herself under enough control to repeat that one to John without laughing until she peed herself. If Lionel had had ANY idea what he'd just said, he might pee himself too.  
  
She settled for keeping her expression frozen solid.  
  
Lionel read what he was intended to. His own face paled. "I see no reason for that to be the cause of such treatment as this."  
  
Lake moved, standing again, indolently. "You don't?" She put every bit of decades of training and anger and the hideous things she'd seen and done into a voice barely above a whisper.   
  
"The mutations are not controllable, Lionel. Did you not even consider what you might have unleashed? I would personally wipe people like you from the face of the Earth, little man, but there are so many of you. And I am forced to remove you fools one by one." She neglected to add that it was a self-imposed restriction, with John's approval.   
  
"I do not play your careless games. I do not play games at all. I don't think you're stupid enough to take the risk of creating a mutation that you could not control, just for the possibility of a business advantage. I believe you are still lying. Tell me all of it, Lionel. If you are not careful, complete, and honest, I will leave you alive. And I will return."  
  
Lionel was about to object vehemently to being compared to "so many other fools like you," but he didn't get the chance. He looked into Lake's glacier eyes, and froze. She gave him just enough time, and just enough of her expression, to let him see it coming.  
  
Lake reached out with her mind, the psycho-telekinetic power that could shut down a nervous system as easily as it could disrupt the electrical lines of a security alarm. This time, she did not limit the force that she directed against every nerve ending in Luthor's body.  
  
She did, however, paralyze his vocal cords to keep him from screaming aloud.  
  
Seventeen minutes later, Lionel regained fuzzy consciousness. He still could not move voluntarily. But his body was no longer a blank, a missing space. His body burned and shrieked and convulsed. He was lying on the floor in a pool of his own vomit. He could feel blood trickling from his mouth and nose and ears. He was blind again, though not completely. The blood vessels in his eyeballs had ruptured.  
  
"The rest of it, Lionel," purred the soft cool voice.  
  
"Aliens," he choked out, babbling as fast as his damaged and violated voice could manage. "You don't understand. One of them landed here. Got to my son. He's dangerous. Not human." He gasped, even past her control. "The meteor rocks. Only thing that can stop them. They're, they, they can't be hurt. Not by guns. I saw. Please. You have to know. Invaders. Sounds crazy, I know. I swear it, I swear it. Alien invaders."  
  
Among Lake's many instructors had been combat veteran squad leaders. She knew whole hosts of curses. Right now, she couldn't think of any bad enough.  
  
"Finish," was all she said, betraying no emotion at all.  
  
"The meteorites. Give us the power. Fight back. I found out. Saw him. It. Found the spaceship. They're coming, don't you understand? They, they'll take us over! I saw it." Lionel's eyes were weeping blood. "Ask Virgil Swann. Famous. Scientist. Not a nut. Ask him. He found a message. About the aliens. Want to make us their slaves. Rule us. They can. They have powers. Too strong for us. Strong ... you can't imagine. Nothing can stop them. Except for the rocks. Our only defense. It's the truth! I swear it. Please..."  
  
Lake had quit counting the number of people she had killed when she reached one thousand, and that was while she was still a teenager. She was trying to remember if she'd ever been so revolted. Or so angry. Or so absolutely disbelieving.  
  
Clark Kal-El Kent, an alien invader, bent on taking over the world? That was hysterical. Clark couldn't even figure out where to put a comma in a compound sentence. Oh, sure, they'd all seen the stupid message that Jor-El had so pompously sent with his poor kid. "Rule them with strength." Gag a buzzard. The haughty old fart couldn't even be bothered to say "I love you, son, I'm sorry about having to put you through all this?" Little Kal had gotten a better deal being the only survivor of his whole race, stuck on the wrong planet where he was a super-powered freak, than he would have had growing up normal in a society like that.  
  
Lake leaned over Lionel, a useless habit of intimidation. Lionel was broken. Hells, Lionel had been broken since the day he thought that "To Serve Man" had come to life. (She didn't think he was the type to have watched "Independence Day," but you never knew.) Of all the idiotic.... Had Lionel ever even considered getting to just know the child? To see that he had to be forced at meteor-point to so much as be rude?   
  
Was it possible for someone to be so obsessed with their own personal need for power that they considered any potential challenge, any possibility that someone might be capable of taking them on, to be a threat to be eliminated rather than someone to cultivate as a friend?  
  
Well, yes, Lake admitted ruefully. There were so many nutcases with their fingers on the nuclear button these days that she doubted she would have been able to kill them all even if she hadn't had to do it one-on-one (John did not permit his Specials to make impulsive generalities, especially when it came to executions) and under explainable circumstances.  
  
Lionel thought that Clark had "gotten to" his son. It didn't occur to him that Clark might really be the only friend his emotionally abused and unhappy son, who had been forced to become viciously arrogant in order to even survive in Lionel's world, who had turned instinctively to Clark because Clark was one of the few people on the planet not much impressed by the power of a Luthor, was ever likely to have.   
  
Kal-El, abandoned, inhumanly powerful, utterly alone, and still sane, was possibly the best friend an entire species bent on self-destruction through one stupidity or another was ever likely to have.   
  
She considered killing Lionel right now. It would be easy to set up an explainable scenario in such a poorly-defended locale. It would also have been merciful. But Lex might still have some use for the paranoid psycho schizo. Maybe make him sign some papers and have him locked up, in a nice quiet publicity stunt. "All of it, Lionel," she whispered.  
  
Lionel stuttered and stammered and words poured over each other. Where all the vaults were. Where all the papers were. Who knew the truth -- even Lionel was not sure whether Lex knew the full story or not; Lionel refused to believe that Lex would have remained friends with an "alien invader," but the litany of evidence to which Lex had been privy convinced Lake that Lex had a handle on a good deal more than she was comfortable with.   
  
After Korea, she would have to return to Smallville for some follow up.  
  
Who had suspicions. A long list, including Clark's two "girlfriends." Lionel was convinced that their reticent ambivalence stemmed from a subconscious fear of Clark, having apparently never known what teenage dating disasters were like. (Lake admitted that she lacked experience on that front as well.) Lionel skipped completely over Pete. Of course. That "refuse to believe that anyone would be friends with a nonhuman" attitude, again.  
  
None of it was news to Lake, but she listened with clinical interest, looking for the vaguest of contradictions, for an iota of information she had not uncovered herself during debriefing after their last visit as she was being lashed by John's disapproval, with the help of a sixty-person investigation team, eighty computers, and Wynter, under John's scowling eye.  
  
Clark as a Kzinti or Berserker or something. Buy a vowel.  
  
"Thank you, Lionel," she finally murmured, when he ran down, exhausted. She straightened. Touching him would have been too disgusting even for her.  
  
Causing damage and pain with the mind alone was not easy, even for Lake, who had no empathic ability whatsoever, much less telepathic, and could not actually feel what others were going through. John, in fact, disapproved of her using her mental force against other minds directly, mostly because of that very limitation, because he understood just how much of a temptation such personalized yet consequentless torture could be.   
  
Lake could have given nightmares to a death camp prison guard. But even for Lake, there was no way to build callouses on thoughts, on the mind itself.  
  
Psi-fire, Wynter had named her, and not as a compliment. Capable of overriding any mental harm at all from reflecting on or even touching her, even as she forced it onto, into, another brain. Still, it was mind to mind, direct, and she could not help but know what she was doing, what was happening. Sentience to sentience, unprotected, impossible to shield from or be shielded, her talent and skill and sheer raw power unleashed and rampaging through the brain of someone who was defenseless, helpless, powerless against her.   
  
Right now, Lake wished for telepathy, even if it had meant being forced to share directly with what she was about to do. It would have been so much cleaner if she could have just found the correct synapses and destroyed only those. As it was, she was forced to rip through Lionel's mind at random until she was certain that she had destroyed enough to remove his memory of Clark.  
  
It was going to hurt.  
  
And she was going to have to be part of it, at least enough to know when she was finally successful.  
  
This time, she at least let him scream. 


End file.
